Amy Cray

I learned about Hong Kong style Milk Tea long ago while traveling through Malaysia, and recently rediscovered it at a SF restaurant. What a perfect cup of winter greatness when your coffee bean-grinding hand has carpal tunnel and you are looking for a new legal buzz to get you through the work day.

Technically, Milk Tea involves boiling a mixture of various Black Tea leaves for 30 minutes in a silk stocking, making a sort of tea concentrate, then a mysterious final step that only a only a master Milk Tea maker can share.. but one that certainly involves making it milky. I wonder how much can really be left to wonder about, but then I Wikipedia search it and there's a traditional carafe for the dang thing and I get overwhelmed again.

But let's simplify, shall we? We working girls have neither the time nor supply cache to boil our tea in silk stockings or spend an hour searching Wiki entries for the secret. So I've been doing this:

Simmer a simple old black tea bag and a cup of water in a saucepan for five minutes
Turn the burner off and let it sit for another five.
Add evaporated milk until it's the shade of Thai Iced Tea, that lovely creamy honey brown.
Then add a healthy dose of sugar.

Voila! Your new favorite hot beverage, courtesy of the Chinese.

Note: I revere and respect traditional dishes. In fact, I typically refuse to make fusion food, opting for to know more about the traditional dish than how to cover it with peanut mango sauce out of a squirt bottle. If you carry the deep dark secret of how to prepare "real" milk tea, I would be thrilled to know.