With every visit to Hong Kong my obsession with their local variety of milk tea grows stronger. A staple of the city’s afternoon tea culture – a remnant of its colonial past – there are few things more distinctly HK. You can find a passably decent cup of it in Toronto, the best of which (in my slightly-less than humble opinion) can be found at Ming’s Noodle Cafe in Scarborough.

But after having well over a dozen cups of it on our last trip, I decided that I wanted to bring the flavour – and technique – home with me.

The Flavour:

I would describe a good cup of milk tea as strong and smooth. Strong is an obvious word for any caffeinated beverage, but to the uninitiated, ‘smooth’ seems an odd adjective. But it’s without a doubt the most important part. A well-balanced milk tea is creamy and full-bodied, but without being cloying or heavy. This is achieved through the use of evaporated milk (in the right quantity) but equally important is the journey it takes from boiling water to steaming mug. Which is all down to the tea master’s technique.

The Technique:

When it comes to milk tea, it’s impossible to separate the tools from the technique. And the most important tool of all is the tea sock. This porous, cloth device is used to steep the tea – both in the traditional way, and a local variation. Once brewed, the tea is poured through the sock several times, aerating it to add further body and caffeinated strength to the end product. The tea-stained sock is a ubiquitous sight in the cha chaan tengs of Hong Kong, so before I left, I knew I needed to find one for myself. This meant wandering into a few restaurant supply stores and asking the owners (in a little bit of broken Cantonese) if they could sell me one. A cursory Google search found that getting one online is pretty easy, but I’m way too impatient for that type of thing.

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Ingredients:

• Loose black tea (in HK, most cafes have a proprietary blend of multiple ceylon variations)
• A couple of tablespoons per cup of evaporated milk (this is not sweetened condensed milk, so don’t make that mistake)
• boiling water
• sugar to taste

Tools:

• Tea sock
• 2 kettles (or heatproof jugs) to pour the tea back and forth

Directions:

1. Bring a kettle of water to boil.

2. Place the loose leaf tea into the sock. A standard kettle will probably make between 6 and 8 cups of tea, so be generous with the amount of tea. I usually use about 5 or 6 heaping spoonfuls. Sometimes more.

3. Once the kettle comes to a boil, remove it from the heat and drop the tea sock inside. Let it steep for ten minutes off the heat.

4. After ten minutes of steeping you will be left with a very strong black tea. To make it Hong Kong-style, you will need to remove the sock and pass the liquid through it at least 4 times. This is where the second kettle (or heatproof jug) comes into play. Feel free to pour from a height, it looks cooler but it also will add to the beverage’s body.

5. After the tea has been strained 4 times, it is ready to pour. Add the evaporated milk to the individual cups, and pour the tea (once again through  the sock). Sweeten to taste. I’ve found that the time of day will inform your desired sweetness, but maybe that is just me.

I can drink this at just about any time of the day, but it’s most traditionally taken with breakfast and at afternoon tea – usually accompanied by a sweet Chinese pastry (a pineapple bun would be my choice.