The Sinosphere · Volume 32, The Stocking, the Shelter and the Spice Route
Hong Kong Milk Tea (絲襪奶茶)
Central, Hong Kong
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 20 minutes
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Central, Hong Kong, 1952. A cloth filter bag darkened by use gave a whole national drink its nickname.
As tradition built it
Makes about 1 litre. About 20 minutes, plus straining.
Ingredients
- 30 g fine-grade black tea (indicative convention: roughly 65% fine grade, 25% coarse, 10% medium, blended)
- 1 litre just-boiled water
- 100 ml evaporated milk
- to taste sugar syrup, to taste
Method
- Brew the tea blend in the just-boiled water, hot and strong, in a large pot.
- Pour the tea between two large pots through a cloth filter bag (a chinois lined with a double layer of muslin, or a nut-milk bag, stands in well), repeating seven or eight times; this "tea-striking" extracts body while straining out sediment and bitterness (rung 1).
- Put a little sugar syrup in the base of each cup, add roughly 30 ml evaporated milk, then top with roughly 70 ml of the hot tea concentrate.
- Serve hot, or pour over ice for "cold milk tea," a genuine everyday variant.
What a modern chef changes
The one variable worth controlling harder, not a new ingredient.
Rung 1
Method
- Brew a higher tea-to-water ratio than looks reasonable for a Western cup, since the repeated straining and the evaporated milk both need real strength to survive being cut.
- Strain while still hot, every time; fine particulate settles and clogs a cooling filter, and a cooled, re-heated strain will never taste as clean as one done properly the first time.
- Use Black & White brand evaporated milk if it can be sourced (see Sourcing), whose thicker, more caramelised character is closer to what Hong Kong tea houses actually use than a supermarket own-brand substitute.