Maritime Southeast Asia · Volume 45, The Mortar, the Wok and the Roti Board
Teh tarik
Tamil Muslim (mamak), Straits Settlements
Illustration
- Time
- 10 minutes
- Researched
- Researched from 231 sources in the brief
Nowhere in this atlas is the atlas's own argument, that ecology, trade, religion and empire outrank the nation state in deciding what a kitchen looks like, more nakedly on display than in a Penang kopitiam where a Hainanese proprietor fries a Cantonese-taught pork chop, a Hokkien clan association keeps its own festival foods a few streets over, and a mamak stall two doors down pulls tea until two in the morning, all three of them serving Malaysians, full stop, none of the three claiming to be the whole of Malaysian food.
As tradition built it
Tea steeped 10 minutes; five pulls, no more
Ingredients
- 30g strong black tea (or tea dust) strong black tea
- 2 tbsp condensed milk, per 200ml serving condensed milk
- 3 tbsp evaporated milk, per 200ml serving evaporated milk
Method
- Teh tarik, meanwhile, is strong black tea, condensed and evaporated milk, pulled repeatedly between two vessels held at increasing distance, a technique that does three real things at once: cools the drink from scalding to drinkable, blends the condensed milk fully through rather than leaving it pooled, and aerates the liquid through shear as it falls, building a stable microfoam rather than the coarse bubbles a whisk would give.
- Five pulls, no more, is the usual limit before the foam degrades rather than improves.
What a modern chef changes
Brewed to a precise, repeatable strength before the pull
Method
- For the tea, brew it to a precise, repeatable strength using a temperature-controlled kettle rather than guesswork, since the pull's aeration technique depends on starting from a consistent base rather than compensating for an inconsistent one.