Hong Kong-style milk tea

Hong Kong-style milk tea or dai-pai-dongmilk tea is a beverage originating from Hong Kong. It consists of black teasweetened with evaporated milk, and is usually part of an afternoon meal in Hong Kong tea culture.

Although it originates from Hong Kong, it is now also frequently found outside of Hong Kong, including at restaurants serving Hong Kong-style western cuisine. The bubble tea(boba tea) is a similar-tasting drink from Taiwan that makes use of cold milk tea.

History

Image:Daipaidong3.jpg Hong Kong-style milk tea originates from British colonial ruleover Hong Kong. The British practice of afternoon tea became popularized in Hong Kong, as did the practice of sweetening the tea. In traditional Chinese beverages, milk is rarely if ever consumed with tea, and tea is typically unsweetened.

Hong Kong-style milk tea is made of a mix of several types of black tea(the proportion of which is usually a "commercial secret" for those famous milk tea sellers), evaporated milk, and sugar, the last of which is added by the customers themselves unless in the case of take-away. The common advertising catchphrase for milk tea in Hong Kong is "Ceylonblack tea with Holland Black & White evaporated milk".

The key feature of Hong Kong-style milk tea is that a sackcloth bag is used to filter the tea leaves. The bag, reputed to make the tea smoother, gradually develops an intense brown colour as a result of prolonged tea drenching. Compounded with the shape of the filter, it simply looks like a pantyhose. Therefore, Hong Kong-style milk tea is also known as "silk stocking milk tea" (Chinese: ????; CantoneseIPA: /s?₅₅ m?t₂₂ n??₃₃ ts??₁₁/, Jyutping: Si1 mat6 naai3 ca4; MandarinPinyin: S? Wà N?i Chá). This name is used in Hong Kong but appears less commonly in Mainland Chinaand overseas communities.

Culture

Image:P1010274.JPG Image:Hong Kong milk tea.jpg Milk tea is part of the daily life of many Hong Kongers. Unlike the situation in Britainwhere tea drinking was historically associated with the upper class, milk tea in Hong Kong is popular among the masses.

Milk tea is typically served as part of afternoon tea, but is served at breakfast or dinner as well. The beverage enjoys nearly the same ubiquitous status that coffeeholds in western countries. While not offered by more traditional Cantonese restaurants or dim sum teahouses, milk tea is standard fare in Hong Kong-style western restaurants and cha chaan tengs, as well as Hong Kong's historic dai pai dongs, with a price between HKD$8–$12 (hot, one or two dollars is additionally charged for cold).

There had been debates over the authentic way of making milk tea, i.e. the sequence of adding each. Some people argue that milk should be added before pouring the tea, while some hold the opposite view. Most people do agree that both ways are authentic. In the past, however, milk tea were usually made in the tea-after-milk way. It is said that the cups may break when the tea (which can be as hot as 80–90 degree Celsius) is poured. There is also a saying that the milk can be sterilized when the tea is added.

In Hong Kong, a cup of hot milk tea is usually either served in a ceramic cup (often referred to as a "coffee cup") or in a low cylindrical cup made of glass or plastic.

Cold milk tea

Image:Dai pai dong 2.jpg Today the cold milk tea is usually prepared with ice cubes. However, in the old days, when machines for producing ice cubes were not popular, the cold milk tea was made by filling the hot milk tea into a glass bottle and then cooling it in a refrigerator. Sometimes the milk tea were filled in Vitasoyor Coca-Colabottles, and were sold by bottle. Today this type of "bottle milk tea" is rare in Hong Kong.

In the case of milk tea with ice cubes, the melting ice will dilute the content, thus affecting the taste of the drink; therefore, many people prefer the old way of preparing cold milk tea. Today some cha chaan tengs serve ice-less cold milk tea, made by pouring hot milk tea into plastic cup and then cooling it in a fridge, and use that as a selling point.

Criteria

Image:Silky smooth milk tea.jpg Most people would say that the first criteria of a good cup of milk tea is its "smoothness". To be more precise, a satisfying cup of milk tea is expected to be creamy and, to use the jargon of wine-tasting, full-bodied.

One of the indicators of a nice cup of milk tea (also of bubble tea) is the appearance of "??" (Cantonesepronunciation: gwa b?i ^?, gwa3 bui1 ^?; lit. hanging cup): if the concentration of butterfatin the evaporated milk used is high enough, some white substance can be seen "hanging" on the internal surface of the cup, after a portion of the drink has been drunk. A sufficient concentration of butterfat is said to make the drink full-bodied.

Cha chow

Cha chow (?? CantoneseIPA: /ts??₁₁ ts??₃₅/, Jyutping: caa4 zau2, MandarinPinyin: chá z?u, lit. tea running or removing) is milk tea prepared with condensed milk, instead of evaporated milk and sugar. Its taste is, as can be expected, sweeter than ordinary milk tea.

See also

• yuanyang
• Hong Kong tea culturezh:絲襪奶茶

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It uses material from the Wikipedia article Hong Kong-style milk tea.