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National Tapioca Day

Food · June 28

A food day for tapioca, the starch from cassava root that shows up as pearls in pudding, bubble tea and many other dishes.

National Tapioca Day falls on Monday, June 28, 2027. That is 244 days away.

Tapioca is a starch taken from the root of the cassava plant. It is sold as flour, as flakes, and most famously as small round pearls that turn soft and translucent when cooked.

The pearls are what most people picture. In a classic American tapioca pudding they sit suspended in sweet, vanilla-scented custard, giving each spoonful a texture somewhere between rice pudding and something that has decided to be more interesting. Larger pearls, cooked until chewy and often sweetened, sit at the bottom of bubble tea and get pulled up through a wide straw.

Tapioca flour has quieter jobs. It thickens fruit pie fillings without making them cloudy, and it gives some breads a pleasantly stretchy chew. Because it comes from a root rather than a grain, it turns up often in gluten-free baking.

Marking the day usually means eating some. Pudding can be made from a box of small pearl tapioca, milk, sugar and an egg, stirred on the stove until it thickens. Bubble tea shops make the chewy version easy to find. The pearls firm up as they cool, so pudding left in the fridge overnight comes out thicker and denser than it went in.

Dry tapioca pearls look a bit like tiny beads of chalk, and it takes some patience in the pot before they turn into something you would want to eat.

Ways to celebrate

• Make a pot of stovetop tapioca pudding with milk and vanilla.
• Try a cup of bubble tea with chewy tapioca pearls.
• Use tapioca flour to thicken a homemade fruit pie filling.
• Compare warm and chilled tapioca pudding to see how the texture changes.

Dates

All national days on June 28

Also on June 28

• National Ceviche Day
• Paul Bunyan Day
• Tau Day

Categories: Food days