Milk tea is a drink that almost all men, women and children love, and there are various types and flavors of milk tea in various countries, and the most common thing we see on the market may be "British milk tea".
Revelation! Orthodox English milk tea
Traditional British milk tea is based on black tea, only a small amount of milk is added, and it is a milk tea with a strong tea flavor and a light milk taste, which is different from the milk tea with creamer in the hand-cranked beverage stores we usually drink. In addition, it is common for Brits to drink milk tea while chatting after breakfast, afternoon tea or dinner, and the capacity of a cup of tea is not much.
The key to making black tea
English milk tea prefers to use loose tea leaves instead of tea bags, and the amount of tea used in milk tea will be much higher than that of black tea alone; In addition, the filtered water used to make tea is poured into a teapot immediately after boiling to steep the tea leaves.
Tips: Black tea must be brewed with hot water above 90 degrees Celsius to release the catechins and caffeine of the tea, so the hot water must be boiled.
Milk at room temperature is not heated
When making English milk tea, British people usually use room temperature milk that has been sterilized at low temperature, and the milk is not heated in advance, because the heated milk is easy to spoil, and even produces a foul smell, reducing the aroma of black tea.
Warm the kettle/cup first
Because the milk of English milk tea does not go through the heating step, the action of "warming the cup" is very important! Pour enough hot water into the ceramic teacup or teapot in advance and leave it for one to two minutes to help the teacup heat up, so as to avoid the poured black tea from forming a low temperature due to the low temperature milk, which will destroy the deliciousness of the whole cup of tea.
Add milk first, then tea
After warming the cup, pour in an appropriate amount of milk first, and then pour the brewed hot black tea into the teacup for nine minutes, let the tea aroma and milk aroma mix, and complete the orthodox British milk tea!
Why do you add milk before tea?
There are two popular theories about why English milk tea should be added with milk first:
How expensive is tea?
At that time, the price of tea in the UK was much higher than that of milk, so most people would add a lot of milk to reduce the consumption of tea.
Is porcelain so precious?
The tea-drinking culture in Britain flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it was also the era of prosperous maritime trade, in addition to tea, many high-end porcelain were imported from China to Britain; Because the porcelain body is very thin, in order to prevent the hot tea from being too hot and causing cracks in the cup, it is customary to add cold milk to the cup before heating the tea.