What Does Taro Taste Like? (Ultimate Guide) (2024)

If you are wondering what taro tastes like, here is a comprehensive guide to help you out.

So, let’s get right into it.

What is Taro?

Before we get into the taste and flavors of taro, here is what it is.

Taro is a root vegetable that is a staple and most commonly found in tropical regions, especially Southeast Asia. It has a bark-like brown and fuzzy skin and on the inside, it has a pale-white starchy flesh, speckled with purplish spots. The taro is a versatile vegetable and can be had in savory and sweet recipes.

It is most popularly known as boba tea or taro milk tea which is made with a powder extracted from the taro root.

What Does Taro Taste Like?

Taro has a very mild taste, slightly on the sweet side. The closest taste comparison is a potato but sweeter. When cooked, it can taste a lot like sweet potatoes. It has a nutty flavor, unlike potatoes. All in all, the taro can taste quite bland or flavorless, but that makes it extremely versatile.

Taro is also really great at absorbing flavors, which makes it sweet and vanilla-like in desserts and equally savory in spicy dishes.

Its starch content also makes it great to taste when fried or baked. Some people have also commented that taro can taste slightly like milk or rice.

At the end of the day, it is quite hard to pick a single taste profile for taro roots.

It mostly depends on how it is prepared and what flavors it is combined with.

What Does Taro Milk Tea (Taro Boba Tea) Taste Like?

Taro milk tea or taro boba tea has a creamy, rich, sweet taste. Some have compared the taste to vanilla or cookies. The boba can be chewy and give a slightly nutty flavor to the drink. The taro boba can have an odd taste to first-timers, but it is an acquired taste and can also depend on the place you are trying it from.

Here is a quick recipe to prepare Taro Boba Tea –

What Does Taro Ice Cream Taste Like?

Taro ice cream has creamy vanilla or coconut-like sweetness, with mild nutty flavor mixed in the background. It has a vanilla-like aroma as well. Although it can be a strange flavor, it is one worth trying, and depending on the ingredients used it can go from mild to sweet.

Does Taro Taste Sweet?

The taro root on its own is quite bland and has a very mild sweetness. But when cooked or used in dessert recipes, taro can taste quite sweet and have a vanilla flavor.

When cooked it is often compared to sweet potatoes, being both starchy and sweet.

Does Taro Taste Like Vanilla?

Taro can taste like vanilla when it is made into boba tea or ice creams, or any such dessert recipes. On its own, the taro has a mild sweetness and is much like a sweet potato.

But in desserts, the taro can not only have vanilla or cookie-like flavor but also have a similar aroma.

What Does Taro Powder Taste Like?

Taro powder has a much stronger flavor than taro is sweeter as well. The store-bought taro powder usually contains added ingredients that give it a more rounded and creamy taste when mixed in with drinks or the recipe of choice.

Does Taro Taste Like Yam?

Although taro and yam are not the same, they do have some similarities in taste. They both have a starchy and sweet flavor, which is also shared by some other root vegetables.

But taro is nuttier in flavor than yam.

Does Taro Taste Like Arrowroot?

Taro and arrowroot, also known as yuca, have similar tastes in that they have a nutty and sweet taste profile. Although they could be substituted for each other in certain recipes, keep in mind that taro has a unique sweetness and vanilla-like flavor when used in sweet dishes, unlike arrowroot.

Arrowroot or yuca is a better fit for savory recipes.

Is Taro Similar To Ube?

Although Taro and Ube may look similar on the outside with brown and earthy barks, they are two vastly different vegetables. Taro is a root vegetable while Ube is a stem vegetable, similar to yam. They are both used for various culinary purposes.

When cooked and mashed, Taro has a light lilac-colored mix with darker purple spots while Ube has a vibrant purple-colored flesh.

Does Taro Boba Taste Like Potato?

Cooked Taro tastes very similar to potato with their shared starchy feature. Taro, however, is much sweeter and more like sweet potatoes. When making its well-known Taro Boba beverage, this mashed Taro has a smooth and pudding-like consistency.

The starchy taste does not remain when taro is infused in taro boba tea or other desserts. When added with sugar and vanilla flavoring the starchy feel is no longer present.

Why Is Taro Boba Purple?

The celebrated Taro Boba is known for its aesthetic pastel purple or lilac hue that captures hearts even before it is tasted. This color is sadly a result of additional purple food coloring.

Moreover, the taro root has small purple spots and lines but mostly is pale white.

This small amount of naturally occurring purple color in the root flesh is not enough to give the beverage such an eye-catching color although it is the color that attracts most of us.

Does Taro Boba Contain Caffeine?

Taro Boba tea that is served in restaurants and other known Boba tea places contains very little amount of caffeine in it depending on the kind of tea used.

This little amount of caffeine is not too strong or bitter and will definitely not keep you up at night.

Taro Boba is usually known to be a very sweet beverage due to the large amounts of sugar that are usually added to it, rather than caffeine.

Can Lactose Intolerant People Have Taro Boba Tea?

Yes, lactose-intolerant people can very well enjoy this sweet lilac beverage.

Taro boba is but a flavoring agent that can be added to any other form of plant-based milk like almond milk, soy milk, or oat milk. It need not be added to cow’s milk.

Taro Boba also does not have to be enjoyed as a tea or beverage. It can be enjoyed as ice cream, custard, or smoothie without the addition of anything lactic.

Bottom Line

I hope this article helped you figure out the taste and flavors of taro root or some of its derivatives. If you have any queries or would like to share some taste know-hows of your own, it would be great to hear from you.

Feel free to share this article with your family and friends who would love to try out some new dishes.