How to make Hong Kong style Milk Tea?

Hong Kong style milk tea is second to none. If you are a tea lover, this is one thing you must experience in your life. It has a creamy texture with a sweet and rich flavor and is great both hot and iced. It probably goes without saying that you will enjoy Gang Shi Nai Cha 港式奶茶 most in Hong Kong, not only because of the authentic environment, but also because of the local original recipes, which are often strictly guarded. Authentic Hong Kong milk tea has its own viscosity, texture, taste and aroma as well as color. After a certain time spent in Hong Kong, it will become indispensable and irreplaceable for you.

To prepare real Hong Kong milk tea, you need 45-60 minutes of time, a special strainer very similar to nylon stockings and a good recipe. In Hong Kong, it is most often prepared on a gas stove in stainless steel utensils. There are a few places where you can still see the preparation in ceramic dishes, such as at Pak Kee Coffee and Milk Tea (Ngau Tau Kok), but there are only a few such places. Every owner of a bistro that offers Nai Cha is proud of their milk tea, so they protect their recipe. However, if such a person is in your circle of close acquaintances, you may be lucky and get the recipe. In the mid-19th century, we would have used highland black Ceylon Uva for Hong Kong milk tea, but already for many decades, a blend of several black teas in the appropriate proportion has been used for Nai Cha. Typically the Indian Assam for its strength, the highland Ceylon for its ability to balance the taste and the Chinese Keemun for its unsurpassed aroma. It is no coincidence that these three teas combine to create a good English Breakfast tea, which you can also find in our catalog, making it the ideal tea for preparing our Hong Kong milk tea.

Prepare the following:

• English Breakfast tea
• Brown sugar
• 1 eggshell
• Evaporated milk

Why eggshell? It reduces the high acidity of the tea infusion caused by long steeping and thereby reduces the bitterness of the resulting drink. As for the evaporated milk, in Hong Kong you would most likely use one of the milks pictured below, but basically you can use any other cow's evaporated milk.

How to prepare the tea?

1. Put about 3 teaspoons of tea, an eggshell and a cup of water (250ml) into a small pot.
2. Bring to a boil and steep for about 6 minutes. This will over-infuse the tea, which is the intention.
3. Remove the tea from the heat and let it cool for 3 minutes.
4. Fill your teacup 1/3 full with the evaporated milk.
5. Again, bring the tea back to the boil and immediately pour it through a strainer into a cup.
6. Add sugar to taste and serve.

This milk tea is probably the best experience you can taste without traveling to Hong Kong. But you can find a thousand other reasons to go to Hong Kong, so while you're there, try the local one, ideally in several places.