This is an easy authentic Hong Kong Milk Tea recipe 港式奶茶: i.e. each homemade cup is smooth, sweet, and thick with no boba pearls. It's delicious both iced in summer and hot in winter. (I show you how to make it at home with tea leaves + tea bags.)
You will need a few simple ingredients for 2 Cups of this popular drink recipe 港式奶茶:
- black tea leaves: different cha chaan teng (Hong Kong cafes) have their own tea leaves blends, but the standard mix is to use Broken Orange Pekoe Tea Leaves (BOP), BOF Fannings, Tea Dust and Lipton (BOP and Ceylon) tea in the ratio 3: 3: 3: 1. (e.g. 3 grams of BOP (for the aroma), 3 grams of BOF Fannings (for the color- if you use regular tea only, the drink won't look quite as deep in color), 3 grams of Tea Dust (for the taste) & 1 gram of Lipton tea (to enhance.)) As BOP and BOF Fannings aren't readily available in regular supermarkets, I recommend substituting with 4-5 Tablespoons of Ceylon, Earl Grey Assam tea and/ or Darjeeling tea leaves. You can mix various black tea leaves for a unique flavor but do not use white, red or green teas.
- hot water: 3 Cups or 0.7 litres will give you about 2 Cups of tea after boiling.
- evaporated milk: ⅔ Cup or 107.5ml (This is unsweetened.)
- sweet condensed milk: 2 Tablespoons- you need this for its syrupy, sugar taste.
Optional: you will need a cheesecloth, tea sock or fine strainer if you want to give the tea its characteristic smooth texture.
Variations
- Quick hack (for 1 Cup of tea): steep 4 black teabags in mug of boiling-hot water for 6-10 minutes, remove the teabags, then add 5 Tablespoons of evaporated milk and sweet condensed milk (or to taste- remember that this is a strong, milky and sweet tea.) (I tried 3 teabags for 6 minutes- shown above- and the testers' all said the tea taste was too light, so don't skimp!)
- Iced Milk tea: add ice cubes to the mug before assembling the drink.
- Always chill the drink before pouring over the ice cubes to avoid melting the iceand watering down your tea
- Use 1 large ice cube instead of many small ones to slow down the rate of dilution
- Brown sugar tea: Although not traditional, brown sugar gives this recipe more depth of flavour and an almost caramel taste- you will need to use less condensed milk to avoid the drink being overly sweet.
- Hong Kong milk tea boba: add tapioca pearls to your Hong Kong-style milk tea. Alternatively, you can also add chocolate pudding, grass jelly or coffee jelly.
- Yuanyang tea: click through for the full instructions (basically you add coffee)
- Happy Hour: add a splash of Kahlua or Baileys
- Pimped up version: Spritz whipped cream on top, and drizzle some caramel syrup or chocolate sauce on the Hong Kong milk tea!
- Caffeine-free yuanyang tea for children (兒童鴛鴦): mix Horlicks and Ovaltine.
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Hong Kong Milk Tea
Ingredients
- 3 Cups water
- 5 Tablespoons black tea leaves
- 10 Tablespoons evaporated milk
- 2 Tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
Instructions
- In a pot, add 3 cups of water and the 5 Tablespoons. tea leaves. Bring to the boil.
- Once boiling reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. (You want small bubbles not big ones.)
- After 15 minutes, switch off the fire. If you want a smooth tea, pour through a fine strainer, cheesecloth or tea sock to remove all the tea dust.
- Pour the tea into 3 Cups and mix in the evaporated milk (approximately 5 Tablespoons) and sweet condensed milk (approximately 1 Tablespoon or to taste.)
- Serve with cookies or pastries such as Hong Kong egg tarts.
Note: the nutritional information is an estimate automatically calculated using the WPRM recipe maker and I am not responsible for its veracity.
Nutrition
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