What Is Thai Tea Made Of
The modern-day version of Thai Tea is made from a commercial pre-blended tea mix. This mix is much more convenient and easy to use than measuring out spices, tea, etc., as done with the traditional way of preparing it.
A base of black tea is used. Spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, and star anise are added to the black tea, along with orange coloring and sugar. To make this tea a milk tea, condensed and evaporated milk are added.
The authentic Thai Tea served throughout Thailand in cafes, tea shops, and street vendors is made from a mix. This mix has the right blend of black tea, spices, coloring, and flavoring.
Is Black Tea The Same As Thai Tea?
The ingredients are what sets these two teas apart. Black tea is nothing more than a type of tea , whereas Thai Tea has black tea as an ingredient. The black tea ingredient in Thai Tea does not make it a black tea.
How To Make Thai Tea Frappuccinos
1. MAKE TEA
Heat water on the stovetop or in an electric kettle with a temperature setting. If using an electric kettle with a temperature setting, set it to 190°F.
Use filtered water whenever possible when making tea since itll make it taste better.
Steep Thai tea mix and black tea in hot water. Strain out tea leaves and stir in brown sugar. Set aside.
Tea Sommeliers Tip: To sweeten tea drinks, I find adding brown sugar or honey gives it more depth of flavor than regular sugar.
2. MAKE WHIPPED CREAM TOPPING
Using a handheld milk frother, whisk heavy cream and sweetened condensed milk together to make whipped cream.
3. BLEND
Blend ice, brewed Thai tea, sweetened condensed milk, and evaporated milk until smooth. Use a blender tamper to make the smoothest frappuccinos.
4. ASSEMBLE DRINK
Pour frozen Thai tea into two cups. This drink makes two 17 oz drinks which is a little bigger than a Starbucks grande .
Spoon on the whipped cream.
Serve with a straw and drink immediately.
What Is Thai Tea
Thai tea is a tea beverage that originated in Thailand and is now popular throughout the world. This tea is notoriously known because of its orange color. Theres a whole lot of feisty in a cup of this tea, making it intriguing, to say the least.
It is unknown who invented this tea or where it came from. Many speculate that the tea culture of the Chinese came to Thailand back in the 1940s. It was around that time that the communist party took over the country leading to many Chinese fleeing the country, some of which ended up in Thailand. Since then, the tea culture of the Chinese has greatly influenced Thailands gastronomy.
Thailand was not a traditional tea nation, nor did they cultivate tea as China does. It wasnt until the 1980s that Thailands first tea crop was established in Chiang Mai Province. Various Chinese traditions of brewing tea caught on in Thailand, with street vendors serving up creative drinks with tea in them. One of which is Thai Tea.
The mysterious background of this drink fails to answer many questions people have about Thai Tea. So, why is it called Thai Tea? No one knows. Perhaps its because it is one of Thailands most popular drinks.
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What Is The Difference Between Thai Tea And Milk Tea
Milk tea is a popular drink iced or hot and is traditionally made using black tea. The “milk” can range from sweetened condensed milk to evaporated milk to whole milk to non-dairy milk. Thai tea is a type of milk tea that contains a more specific mixture of black tea, spices, sugar, and evaporated and/or condensed milk.
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How Can You Make Thai Tea Dairy
Just as you might enjoy coffee black, you can choose to enjoy Thai tea on its own without the added creaminess of condensed milk. However, if you’d like to recreate that creaminess of classic Thai tea, try using coconut milk for that subtly sweet creaminess. If using oat, almond, soy or other alternative milks, you might want to add a sweetener.
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How To Make Thai Tea At Home
Brewing the tea mix is as easy as making any other tea at home. In a pot over the stove, add 4 cups of water on medium-high heat. Once the water begins to boil, add the tea mix and stir the tea mix thoroughly.
Allow the tea to boil for 3 minutes. Carefully watch the boiling tea to prevent the water from over boiling and potentially ruining your stove with yellow food dye. After 3 minutes, remove the pot off the heat and let the mixture cool for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, strain the tea over a mesh strainer and a bowl, or a fancy tea sock. Make sure the tea is nice and clean of any tea leaves. Since Thai tea is best served cold, I like to make this recipe ahead of time and leave it to chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
To assemble, fill a glass with lots of ice and add half of the cooled Thai tea into a glass. Mix in your preferred sweetener . Now sit and watch the amazing-ness of the orange ombre about to take effect. This is my favorite part!
The ice will help dilute some of the sweetness so we want a strong and sweet base. Top it off with more ice if you prefer. Enjoy!
How To Make Homemade Evaporated Milk
Since this recipe only makes two drinks you wont need very much evaporated milk. You can store the remaining homemade milk in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for your next batch of tea.
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Is It Easy To Get Thai Tea Everywhere
You can get Thai tea at an Asian grocery store. But I also agree that getting the Thai tea bags everywhere is not so easy. But Thai Iced Tea lovers found a solution to recreate this tea at home. To get perfect Thai tea blend, youll only need some loose black tea leaves and then you add a few spices to it while boiling.
Tea Leaves To Water Ratio
I did an approximate of water and leaves. You can adjust it if you like stronger or lighter tea depending on your preference and size of your Instant Pot. This is quite a lot of tea so I would definitely adjust the amount of water/tea ratio if you dont want a huge pot of tea. This is perfect if you are creating a batch for the week or need a party quantity!
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Tips For Making The Best Thai Iced Tea
- Lots of sugar. Thai iced tea is super sweet, just like Southern sweet tea, and you can use whichever sweetener you prefer. Adding quite a bit of sugar may seem odd, but this is key for making the best-tasting Thai tea.
- Sweetened Condensed Milk. This super thick milk mixture does add even more sweetness but also brings an extra-smooth creaminess to the beverage. It is also responsible for creating the beautiful ombre look of deep orange to a creamier colored orange.
- Whole Spices. Since this recipe doesnt use the Thai tea mix youll need to add some additional spices. These spices will be in their whole form to achieve that delicious flavor. I would even suggest using these spices in the tea mix too though. You need a cinnamon stick, star anise, whole cardamom, ground turmeric, and a piece of vanilla bean although the last is optional.
How To Make Thai Iced Tea
We’ll show you two ways to make Iced Thai tea: real Thai iced tea and regular Thai tea.
Most of the regular iced Thai tea mixes usually contain syrup or low-grade powder. But the real iced Thai tea gets its flavor from high-quality spices and black tea, excluding any artificial ingredient. That means your drink won’t become bright orange since the color comes from a dye added to the Thai tea mixes.
If you love masala chai and other milky or spiced black teas, then you’ll also love this beverage. If you don’t have all the spices listed in this recipe, that’s fine you can leave out one or two.
But if you want to get the full flavor, you can get tamarind powder at your local Indian or Southeast Asian market.
Even though you can use tea bags, we recommend using loose-leaf tea it tastes better because the loose-leaf flavor is richer and more complex.
Let’s start with the real Iced Thai tea.
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What Is The Right Way To Steep
You can steep this tea in a teapot, in a pan, or you can simply use a tea sock for steeping. The one thing which is important to remember is to always use hot water if you are not boiling it in a pan. You just leave tea leaves in hot water, steep for a few minutes until you see that deep color. Let it cool and strain the tea leaves out.
Is It Easy To Make The Vegan Version Of This Thai Iced Tea
Yes, it is unconditionally an easy job. All you have to do is to swap sweetened condensed milk for coconut condensed milk. Rest of the recipe will remain the same. You can also try this vegan version even if you are not vegan yourself because it tastes incredibly different and delish with the touch of coconut.
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What Is Thai Iced Tea
This tea drink is usually made from tea mix, sugar, and milk. And you can serve it cold or hot. First, the beverage is poured on ice and sweetened with sugar, and then you add the milk on top.
But remember that the beverage we love here in America isn’t necessarily original iced Thai tea. Actually, in general, tea is a relatively new concept that came from China to Thailand sometime around the 1980s.
The traditional ingredients of Iced Thai tea were condensed milk, black tea, and crushed ice. During this time, Thai Tea became the main drink on Thai streets.
What Is Authentic Thai Tea
Authentic Thai tea is a blend of black tea, spices, evaporated milk, and sweetener. Thai Tea Mix is commonly used, which is a blend of black tea and spices, such as star anise, cardamom, and tamarind. Sugar is the typical sweetener.
Different variations of this drink use evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, or even coconut milk.
When I was in Thailand, every time I had this drink it was made with evaporated milk. When I asked why, I was told that evaporated milk is traditional. Because of the hot climate of Thailand its difficult to keep fresh milk for any length of time, so they got used to evaporated milk, which is self-stable.
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Quick Release Vs Natural Pressure Release
I will also NPR instead of QR if Im not in a rush. The Thai tea leaves arent as sensitive as other tea leaves. I honestly havent noticed much difference in NPR/QR and time variances for pressure cooking as well. Ive tried 10-15 minutes of high-pressure cooking time and have not noticed any difference.
How Many Calories Does Thai Iced Tea Have
Unfortunately, Thai iced tea contains more creamer and sugar than traditional boba flavors. This makes it generally less healthy than other drinks.
The exact calorie range of Thai iced tea can vary greatly depending on how much sugar and cream are used. To put it into perspective, usually, Thai iced tea will have more calories than a can of Coca Cola. The number of calories per serving can get even higher if youre drinking Thai iced tea with boba pearls.
So if youre thinking about achieving that summer body soon Thai iced tea might not be so friendly.
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Why Is It So Orange
Have you ever wondered why Thai tea has such an incredibly, and overly orange tone to it?
So did I.
After I read the ingredients list on the bag of tea, I discovered that it includes some C Yellow Number 6 .
So thats the secret, its not just that its really awesome yellow tea, its a food dye that they put into the tea leaves .
I think you could make this Thai iced tea recipe with any kind of black tea, and it might just not have that orange color, but I think it would taste fine.
But on the streets of Thailand, or if you go to a Thai restaurant and order iced tea, it will always be the orange color.
Thai iced tea recipe try it today
I used about 1 tablespoon of tea leaves for this recipe.
There are a number of different ways you can steep your tea leaves, but the point to remember is you just need to steep them in hot water for a few minutes until you tea is nice and dark orange in color.
I used a tea sock, but you can even just toss your leaves into a cup of hot water, leave it for a few minutes, and then strain out the leaves.
Thai iced tea is always prepared hot, and yet its consumed cold on ice.
But rather than sticking it into the fridge or freezer and cooling the tea off, its instead poured over a cup of crushed ice before being consumed. When you make your tea, if you taste test it when its still hot, you want it to be a little stronger and sweeter than you like it, and it will become diluted as soon as it hits the ice.
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Ingredients & Items Needed
Thai Tea Mix
I would recommend using the Pantai Thai Tea Mix. Another popular brand you can try is Number 1 The Original Thai Iced Tea Mix. Ive only tried the Pantai brand, which was easily found at my local Asian grocery store.
Evaporated Milk vs. Condensed Milk
I used to make my Thai iced tea with only half and half creamer. After searching for the most authentic version, I adjusted my recipe. My cousins wife is from Thailand, and she confirmed with me that evaporated milk and condensed milk is commonly used together to attain a creamy Thai iced tea. If you dont have any evaporated milk, you can use half and half creamer, which still tastes great. You can also adjust the amount of condensed milk as needed depending on your sweetness preference.
Tea Filter
You will need to either filter the tea mix before or after brewing depending on your preference. If you filter it after, you will want to use a filter similar to this one. If you want to filter while boiling water or pressure cooking, you can use a filter bag similar to this one. I prefer placing my loose tea leaves in a filter bag for ease.
How To Get The Perfect Orange Thai Iced Tea Coloring Without Food Dye
Turmeric! Believe it or not, this spice commonly used in Southeast Asian cuisines such a curry works equally well in Thai tea. Sprinkling the potent powder into your recipe will naturally dye the tea the delicious beautiful burnt orange color without the potential health consequences.
While turmeric does have a strong flavor it doesnt overpower this Thai tea mixture. It blends perfectly with the other flavorings.
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Why This Thai Iced Tea Or Cha Yen Is So Popular
Thailand is well known for a number of famous beverages worldwide. But this drink Cha Yen which is the literal translation of the Thai Iced Tea, tops all. Thai iced tea is served at restaurants globally and loved by everyone.
I assume that the creamy dessert like sweetness makes this refreshing beverage dreamy and desirable everywhere. The exclusive creamy character and sweetness from condensed milk are so diverse from any normal cup of black tea. Definitely, this iced tea is so loved.
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Thai Iced Tea In Thailand Vs Western Cultures
If traditional Thai tea consists of black tea, condensed milk, and crushed ice, then why is it orange? And what about all those spices?
The orange color and spices were added when Thai tea became more and more popular in Westernized cultures in order to set it apart from regular, plain black tea In fact, in the early years of westernized Thai iced tea, chefs would add orange food coloringto really give it a bright orange hue.
Nowadays, youll find both versions of Thai iced tea in Thailand- the traditional and the westernized version.
The following recipe is a less traditional version of the original Thai tea recipe.
- The ice isnt crushed.
- I used a tea mix rather than black tea with optional spices.
- I made it at home rather than buy it off the street.
- Rather than serving it in a plastic bag with a straw poking out, Im drinking it out of a shiny clean glass.