The Asian Palette (TAP): Hong Kong Style Milk Tea

I have an Asian Palette.  I am not sure how one defines it, but for me, it means a rice-based diet, cooked vegetables, soy sauce and anti-butter.  I’m quite sure this is not the definition of asian palette, btw.

I thought I will write about some food/drinks which are generally not western-palette friendly.  Not yet, anyways.  Which means I am not going to write about Peking Duck, or Dumplings, or Boba tea… 

The first item is Hong Kong Style Milk Tea.

It even has a Wikipedia page here!

My favorite Chinese food blog, Cha Siu Bao, recently did a write-up on the HK Style Milk Tea competition. 

There is nothing especially new about this.  It is a derivation from the English milk tea, only better (in the opinion of the Asian Palette!). 

 

Instead of English breakfast tea, each restaurant selects their own unique blend of tea leaves.  What’s uniform about it is that the tea is very rich (tea is boiled for a few minutes), very smooth (very fine filter using what’s nicknamed as “pantyhose”), a bit thick (using evaporated milk), and very sweet (lots and lots of sugar). 

You drink this milk tea with almost any food.  It’s for lunch, afternoon tea, dinner…  and breakfast.   One interesting variation is what we call “yin yang”, which means coffee + milk tea.  Yep, coffee and tea all in one!

Where to get this in the US: chinatown.  Most Chinese bakeries and “hong kong style western food” restaurants (will explain in a later post).  Just ask for “hong kong style milk tea” and someone will hopefully point you in the right direction!