What does a cup of taro milk tea cost to make?
A line-by-line breakdown of a real taro milk tea from our shop: every ingredient, the cup and straw, and what's left from the price.
By BiteMetrics, built by a boba shop owner5 min read
The short answer
Most boba shops price taro milk tea by looking at the shop down the street. We wanted to know what one cup really costs us, so we divided every supplier invoice down to the gram and costed the recipe line by line. The menu prices and supplier costs are our real ones from October 2026; the recipe amounts are typical for boba.
Line by line
Here is everything in one Regular cup. Each line is the price we pay divided by the amount in the bag, times the amount in the cup.
| In the cup | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Taro powder | 30 g | $0.794 |
| Non-dairy creamer | 20 g | $0.220 |
| Jasmine green tea leaves | 4 g | $0.176 |
| Whole milk | 120 ml | $0.159 |
| Fructose syrup | 20 ml | $0.085 |
| 16 oz cup (packaging) | ×1 | $0.092 |
| Boba straw (packaging) | ×1 | $0.018 |
| Sealing film (packaging) | ×1 | $0.012 |
| Total | $1.55 |
Two things stand out. The taro powder alone is about 51% of the cost of the drink, so that's the price to watch when your supplier sends a new invoice. And the cup, seal and straw add $0.12: small per cup, but it's on every single drink.
Sizes and oat milk
A Large isn't just a Regular with a higher price. It uses more of everything and a bigger cup, so the margin can move either way. Here are all four ways we sell this drink:
| Order | Price | Cost | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular 16 oz | $6.50 | $1.55 | 76.2% |
| Regular 16 oz, oat milk | $7.25 | $1.62 | 77.7% |
| Large 20 oz | $8.25 | $2.05 | 75.2% |
| Large 20 oz, oat milk | $9.00 | $2.14 | 76.2% |
Our target is 75%. Every version clears it, but the Large is the closest at 75.2%: a small rise in milk or taro could push it under.
When a supplier raises a price
Say our oat milk goes from $7.00 to $8.50 a gallon. On a Large with oat milk, the cost goes from $2.14 to $2.21, and the margin from 76.2% to 75.4%. Orders with whole milk don't change at all. That's the useful part: a price rise only matters for the drinks that use it, and you can see exactly which ones.
What “profit” means here
Profit is the selling price minus the ingredient and packaging costs. It doesn't include labour, rent, card fees or waste unless you add them; those come out of the margin. Food cost % is the other side of the same number: cost divided by price.
Do it for your own drink
- List everything in the cup, packaging included.
- For each item, divide what you paid by the amount you bought to get the cost per gram, ml or piece.
- Multiply by how much one drink uses, add it all up, and compare with your price.
The free calculator starts with this exact taro recipe, so you can swap in your own numbers. To do your whole menu, sizes and add-ons included, start free with BiteMetrics.