KamCha | 6 Steps for Brewing a Perfect HK Style Milk Tea
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6 Steps for Brewing a Perfect HK Style Milk Tea

Hong Kong-style milk tea doesn’t focus on the tea tools but the brewing methods. Hong Kong people always use the limited resources for brewing the most aromatic, rich and creamy milk tea.

 

 

Brewing HK Style milk tea is not that difficult, and only needs to follow several steps with the following equipment:

Ingredients:  tea leaves, water, evaporated milk, and sugar

Accessories:  teapots, filter tea bag (silk stocking), electric hotplate

Tea set:  Milk Tea Cup Set, Spoon

Step 1

Mixing the loose tea leaves: brewing HK Style milk tea cannot rely on just one type of tea.  Instead, the perfect cup of tea needs a balance of different tea to formulate the perfect milk tea with the right colour and great aroma. Among the different types of Ceylon loose tea leaves, BOP is the one for bringing the aroma, while the BOPF brings the tea’s colour and Dust can bring out both tea colour and taste, and for strengthening the body. Mixing BOP, BOPF and Dust thoroughly is the 1st step and then put the mixed tea into the 1st teapot.

Step 2

Tea Brewing: Using the 2 teapots, one teapot is filled with boiling water, while the other teapot is filled with tea leaves inside the filter tea bag(silk stocking).  Boiler water is to be poured through the tea leaves and pass through the filter bag.  The process can be done several times as needed. The ideal water temperature is 96℃ when pouring through the tea leaves.

Step 3

“Baking/Stewing” Tea: After the brewing process, the teapot with the tea needs to be covered with a lid and, “baked” for ten minutes (the length of time depending on the tea masters’ experience and the types of tea leaves used).  This process is very important as the temperature will rise and allow the tea flavour to be properly extracted from the tea leaves.

Step 4

Pouring the tea: Once the tea has been reheated for about 10 minutes, open the lid, pick the tea bag up, put it in a teapot which is on the electric plate and pour the tea. For this, pouring the tea back and forth four or five times. The purpose is to let the action of “pouring” bring the tea aroma out and let the air enter into the tea, and make the taste even smoother.

Step 5

“Baking/Stewing” tea: Finally we reheat the tea once more for 1-2 minutes to bring the tea back to drinking temperature (time varies depending on tea and tea master’s experience and the types of tea leaves used).

Step 6

Adding the Evaporated Milk: Mix the perfect tea with the evaporated milk in a cup and can add sugar before serving. The amount of evaporated milk will depend on the tea master and normally take around 1.5oz Filled Milk for a traditional teacup. For best result, serve with warmed evaporated milk in order to maintain the milk tea temperature.