How many calories are in a boba tea?
A shop cup of boba tea holds about 435 g and runs 239 calories. Per 100 g the drink is only 55 calories, which is the trap: the liquid is light, the cup is big. Pour the same tea into a 1-cup measure (240 g) and you get 132 calories.
You'd need to walk about 48 minutes to burn the 239 calories in one shop cup (435 g).
How long does it take to burn off boba tea?
One shop cup (435 g) is 239 kcal. Enter your weight and the amount you ate to see how long it takes you to burn that off:
lb
| Activity | Time to burn 239 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 48 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 30 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 34 min |
| Jogging | 28 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 53 min |
Times are for a 155 lb adult at a steady pace; change the weight to see yours. The amount is set to the portion in the text (435 g); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Boba tea quick facts
- US servings from one ounce to a 16 fl oz cup
- Brown sugar taro and matcha boba
- Milk tea without the pearls
- Saturated fat is the row to watch
- How does boba tea compare?
- Most popular boba tea brands
- FAQ
Boba tea quick facts
The row used here is FNDDS 2710508, "Tea, bubble", from the 2021-2023 survey release. It is the only USDA record for the finished drink with tapioca in it, which is exactly what a person is holding when they look this up. The other tea rows in the database are milk tea or sweetened iced tea without pearls, and they sit lower on calories and carbohydrate, though milk tea carries more protein.
USDA gives the drink a standard portion of 435 g, roughly what a shop hands you in a medium cup with ice and pearls. Everything below scales from the 100 g figures in that record.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 1 boba tea (435 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 55 | 239 | — |
| Total fat | 1.39 g | 6.0 g | 8% |
| Saturated fat | 0.84 g | 3.7 g | 18% |
| Carbohydrate | 10.35 g | 45.0 g | 16% |
| Dietary fiber | 0.1 g | 0.4 g | 2% |
| Total sugars | 3.5 g | 15.2 g | — |
| Protein | 0.39 g | 1.7 g | 3% |
| Sodium | 9 mg | 39 mg | 2% |
% Daily Value is based on a 2,000-calorie diet.
Verified nutrition data
Numbers on this page come from USDA FoodData Central, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food composition database, and from manufacturer labels where a branded product is named. Last verified September 2026. How we verify our data →
Two rows you would expect on a can are missing on purpose. This FNDDS edition does not publish added sugars or trans fat for the bubble tea record, so neither line appears here rather than being guessed at. Total sugars has no Daily Value at all under the FDA label rules, which is why that cell is a dash. Cholesterol comes to 17 mg per cup (6% DV) and potassium to 74 mg (2% DV).
US servings from one ounce to a 16 fl oz cup
| Serving | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 oz | 28.35 g | 16 kcal |
| 1 fl oz | 30 g | 17 kcal |
| Per 100 g | 100 g | 55 kcal |
| 1 cup | 240 g | 132 kcal |
| One boba tea, shop cup | 435 g | 239 kcal |
| 16 fl oz cup | 480 g | 264 kcal |
The 435 g cup, the 1-cup measure and the fluid ounce are USDA household portions from that record. The 16 fl oz line and the dry-ounce line are our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure, not USDA servings, and the 16 fl oz cup assumes a drink weighs about what water weighs.
Here is the practical part. Nobody drinks 100 g of boba tea, and almost nobody stops at one measuring cup. The size printed on the menu board moves this number more than the flavor does: the same tea is 132 calories at 240 g and 239 calories at 435 g. If you log boba as "a cup," you are logging roughly half of what you drank.
Brown sugar taro and matcha boba
Ready-to-drink bottles and cups in US stores let us put flavors side by side, because each one carries its own label. The spread per 100 g is narrow. The spread per container is not.
| Version | Per 100 g | Typical container | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brown sugar boba with tapioca pearls | 55 kcal | 16.6 fl oz (490 g) | 270 kcal |
| Taro bubble tea with tapioca pearls | 56 kcal | 16.6 fl oz (490 g) | 274 kcal |
| Matcha latte boba | 43 kcal | 10 fl oz (355 g) | 153 kcal |
| Boba tea, one cup pour | 55 kcal | 1 cup (240 g) | 132 kcal |
Brown sugar and taro land within a calorie of each other per 100 g, at 55 and 56. The 121-calorie gap between taro and the matcha latte splits about evenly between the container and the density: 490 g against 355 g, and 56 calories per 100 g against 43. Labels on US shelves back this up. INOTEA's brown sugar and honeydew bubble teas both read 55 per 100 g, INO TEA's taro reads 56, and lighter matcha-style drinks from ITO EN and LADY BOBA read 43. Those per-container figures use the label's milliliters at about 1 ml per gram, which is close enough for a mostly-water drink.
So the container does about as much work as the flavor. Ordering taro instead of matcha costs you about 121 calories, and roughly half of that is the bigger cup rather than the recipe.
Milk tea without the pearls
Drop the tapioca and the drink changes character rather than size. USDA's milk tea row is 51 calories per 100 g, four calories under bubble tea, but the makeup is different.
| Drink | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boba tea | 55 kcal | 1 cup (240 g) | 132 kcal | 0.9 g |
| Milk tea, hot, no pearls | 51 kcal | 1 cup (240 g) | 122 kcal | 3.8 g |
Per 100 g, milk tea carries 1.58 g of protein against boba tea's 0.39 g, four times as much. That is the pearls talking: tapioca is starch, so adding it dilutes the milk and pushes carbohydrate up while protein per gram falls. Boba tea is a carbohydrate drink with a little fat in it, and 45.0 g of carbohydrate per shop cup is 16% of a day's Daily Value on its own.
If you want the milk tea flavor and some protein with it, the version without pearls does more for you per calorie. If you want the chew, budget for it.
Saturated fat is the row to watch
Most people brace for the sugar in boba and never look at the fat line. A 435 g cup carries 3.7 g of saturated fat, 18% of the FDA Daily Value of 20 g, from the non-dairy creamer rather than from the tapioca. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend keeping saturated fat under 10% of daily calories, and one afternoon drink using nearly a fifth of that allowance is worth knowing before you order a second.
Sodium goes the other way. At 39 mg per cup, boba tea is 2% of the 2,300 mg Daily Value, which is nothing to manage around. Fiber is a rounding error at 0.4 g. Total sugars come to 15.2 g per cup, and because this record has no added sugars figure, that number cannot be compared against the 50 g added sugars limit on a label. MyPlate's guidance on drinks treats sweetened beverages as calories to spend deliberately, and 239 of them is a real slice of an afternoon.
How does boba tea compare?
| Drink | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boba tea | 55 kcal | 1 cup (240 g) | 132 kcal |
| Bottled iced black tea | 45 kcal | 1 cup (240 g) | 108 kcal |
| Iced tea and lemonade juice drink | 34 kcal | 1 cup (240 g) | 82 kcal |
| Iced black tea, pre-sweetened with sugar | 32 kcal | 1 cup (240 g) | 77 kcal |
Boba is the heaviest of the four per 100 g and per cup, but not by the margin its reputation suggests. Look at the carbohydrate instead: boba tea has 10.35 g per 100 g and bottled iced black tea has 10.8 g, slightly more, yet the bottled tea is 10 calories lighter per 100 g. The difference is fat, 1.39 g against 0.22 g.
Our take: cup for cup, boba is a 132-calorie drink and the sweet bottled teas are 77 to 108, so the pearls cost you less than the marketing fear implies. What costs you is the vessel. A 435 g shop cup is 239 calories, more than double a cup of bottled iced tea, and that gap comes from ordering 435 g instead of 240 g. If you are watching calories, order the small and keep the pearls.
Most popular boba tea brands in the United States
Ranked by how widely each product appears among foods sold in the United States, from the BodyPal food database of over 3.3 million products. Calories are the figures printed on each Nutrition Facts label, checked against USDA FoodData Central.
| Product | Calories (per 100 g) |
|---|---|
| ITO EN Matcha Green Milk Tea | 43 cal |
| INOTEA Brown Sugar Bubble Tea with Tapioca Pearls | 55 cal |
| INOTEA Honeydew & Brown Sugar Bubble Tea | 55 cal |
| JOY MILK TEA Black No.1 Dairy Milk Tea | 49 cal |
| INO TEA Taro Bubble Tea with Tapioca Pearls | 56 cal |
| LADY BOBA Matcha Latte Bubble Tea Drink | 43 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
Boba tea FAQs
How many calories are in a boba tea?
A standard shop cup of 435 g has 239 calories, based on the USDA bubble tea record at 55 calories per 100 g. That cup also carries 45.0 g of carbohydrate and 6.0 g of fat. Poured into a single measuring cup, 240 g, the same drink is 132 calories.
How many calories in a large boba tea?
A 16 fl oz cup weighs about 480 g and works out to 264 calories, our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure rather than a USDA serving. Bigger shop sizes scale from there at roughly 55 calories per 100 g, so every extra 100 g adds about 55.
How many carbs are in bubble tea?
A 435 g cup has 45.0 g of carbohydrate, 16% of the Daily Value, and 10.35 g per 100 g. Only 15.2 g of that is total sugars, so most of the carbohydrate is starch from the tapioca pearls. Fiber is negligible at 0.4 g per cup.
Is boba tea high in sugar?
The USDA record shows 15.2 g of total sugars in a 435 g cup, or 3.5 g per 100 g. That is lower than many people expect, though this FNDDS entry does not publish added sugars, so the split between milk sugars and syrup is unknown. Shop sweetness levels move it substantially.
How many calories in brown sugar boba milk tea?
A 16.6 fl oz ready-to-drink brown sugar bubble tea with tapioca pearls is 270 calories, at 55 calories per 100 g on the label. That is essentially the same density as the generic USDA bubble tea record. The higher total comes from the 490 g container, not from the brown sugar.
How many calories in taro milk tea with boba?
A 16.6 fl oz taro bubble tea with tapioca pearls is 274 calories, at 56 calories per 100 g. It is the heaviest labeled version here, but only by four calories over the same size in brown sugar. Taro is not meaningfully richer per ounce than brown sugar or honeydew boba, though matcha-style drinks run lighter at 43.
Does boba tea have protein?
Very little: 1.7 g in a 435 g cup, 3% of the Daily Value, and 0.39 g per 100 g. Milk tea without pearls has 1.58 g per 100 g, four times as much, because tapioca starch dilutes the milk. Treat boba as a carbohydrate drink, not a protein source.
Is boba tea healthy or fattening?
One 435 g cup is 239 calories with 3.7 g of saturated fat, 18% of the Daily Value, and just 39 mg of sodium. It fits a day easily if you plan for it; two large cups do not. The size you order matters far more than the flavor you choose.
Similar foods
- Bubble Tea — 239 cal per drink
- Protein Shake — 156 cal per cup
- Apple cider — 114 cal per cup
- Root beer — 152 cal for 12 fl oz glass
- Tonic Water — 124 cal per can or bottle (12 fl oz)
- Sweet tea — 119 cal for 12 fl oz glass
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the cup and BodyPal counts the tea and the pearls for you.
