Hong Kong’s café milk tea: strong black tea simmered, then poured back and forth through a cloth strainer from a height until smooth, and made creamy with evaporated milk.
Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here for the Yuenyeung and Hong Kong Café Coffee page.
Ingredients
- 5 tablespoons loose black tea, ideally a mix of leaf sizes (Ceylon, Assam or Lipton Yellow Label; see notes)
- 3 cups (700 ml) water
- ⅓ to ⅔ cup (80 to 160 ml) evaporated milk, to taste
- 1 to 2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk or sugar, to taste
Directions
Key ingredients
Evaporated Milk · Sweetened Condensed Milk
- Put the water and tea in a pot and bring it to the boil.
- Turn the heat down and simmer for 15 minutes with small bubbles, not a rolling boil, until very dark.
- Pour the tea through a fine cloth strainer (a tea sock) or a cheesecloth-lined sieve into a second pot.
- Holding the strainer of leaves over the first pot, pour the tea back through it from about 60 cm (2 feet) up; repeat three or four times between the pots.
- Return the tea to low heat for about 5 minutes more.
- Put the evaporated milk in two cups, pour in the hot tea, and sweeten with condensed milk or sugar to taste.
Notes
Where this comes from The amounts follow Greedy Girl Gourmet’s “Hong Kong Milk Tea” (2025), whose method box describes pouring back through the sock from about 60 cm four times and adding milk at about 3 parts to 7 of tea; its page gives the evaporated milk inconsistently (⅔ cup in one place, 107.5 ml in another), so a range is given here. The Woks of Life’s version simmers 10 tablespoons of tea in 6 cups of water for 15 minutes and adds ⅓ cup evaporated milk and 1 teaspoon condensed milk to each cup. The tea Cha chaan teng masters mix large, medium and small leaves of different teas; Greedy Girl Gourmet gives a café blend of broken orange pekoe, fannings, tea dust and Lipton at 3:3:3:1. How a master does it Hong Kong’s heritage project describes the tea force-poured from a height through the loaded strainer at least three times, then simmered, then poured into the milk. Filled milk (made with vegetable fat) is also used. Iced Brew it about a third stronger, let it cool a little and pour over ice. The photo Silk stocking milk tea at Lan Fong Yuen, Hong Kong; it is not this recipe’s cup.