Milk Tea: What It Is and How to Make It at Home
on Oct 29, 2018, Updated Jan 09, 2021
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Make your tea time creamy and sweet with milk tea. See what milk tea is and how simple it is to make it decadent with brown sugar. Plus, check out the different types of milk tea, including boba tea!
What is Milk Tea?
Milk tea is simply milk with tea. Any kind of tea and any kind of milk together makes milk tea. That’s it!
It’s also another name for bubble tea or boba milk tea. Popular boba milk teas include matcha milk tea, taro milk tea, and jasmine milk tea.
The combinations to make milk tea are endless, but the most basic and common milk tea is black tea and milk.
Make it decadent by adding half & half (instead of milk) and brown sugar (instead of regular white sugar). It’s smooth, sweet, and creamy, just as milk tea should taste.
RELATED: Easy & Delicious Bubble Tea Recipes
Types of Milk Tea
- Bubble Tea
Milk tea and boba (tapioca balls). - London Fog
Earl Grey tea and milk. - Matcha Latte
Matcha and milk. - Chai Latte
Black tea with spices and milk. - Thai Iced Tea
Black tea with spices, sugar, and condensed milk. - Hong Kong-style
Black tea and evaporated milk or condensed milk.
Recipe Highlights
- A 4-ingredient recipe that’s ready in 7 minutes, this milk tea is simple and creamy.
- This recipe uses brown sugar instead of white sugar, which gives the drink a deep and and complex flavor.
- Learn how to make the best milk tea, including what type of water to use.
Ingredient Notes
- Black tea: Any black tea like Assam or English breakfast tea can be used. Go for loose tea or tea sachets to brew a higher quality tea.
- Water: Use filtered water when making tea, if possible.
- Half & half: It’s a dairy product that’s half cream and half milk. It’s a bit creamier than milk but not super thick like cream. It’s perfectly in between the two and it tastes great in strong, black tea.
- Brown sugar: This gives the tea a more richer flavor than just regular sugar since brown sugar is a mix of white sugar and molasses.
For full ingredients and detailed instructions, please see the recipe card at the bottom of the post.
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Boil water.
Making tea is so much easier when you use an electric kettle with temperature setting since not all tea should be made in boiling hot water. - Warm up teapot.
Pour some boiled water into your teapot and swirl the water around to warm up the teapot. Discard the water. - Combine tea and hot water in a teapot. Cover and steep.
- Strain and pour hot tea into a teacup. Stir in brown sugar and add half & half.
Tea Sommelier’s Tips
Brew a strong cup of tea
Since half & half and sugar are being added, you want to make sure the tea is strong and brewed properly with boiling water and steeped for the right amount of time. Weak tea isn’t great for milk tea.
Adjust sweetness
Everyone has a different level of sweet they like in their tea. Start with a teaspoon of sugar first and add more if needed.
Warm your teapot
It’s a good idea to warm up your teapot with hot water before brewing any kind of tea to keep the water hot during the steeping process. This is an extra step all tea professionals take.
Use black tea
Even though any tea can be used to make milk tea, bold, robust black tea works best if you’re using half & half and brown sugar.
RELATED: Iced Brown Sugar Tea Latte
Questions You May Have
Yes! See the step-by-step iced milk tea recipe.
Add any kind of sweetener that you like. I just prefer brown sugar. You can also try date syrup, maple syrup, or even a flavored simple syrup like lavender syrup.
Use 1 tea sachet or 1 tea bag.
Bubble tea is milk tea with boba or tapioca balls in the drink.
Related
- Strawberry Milk Tea
- Brown Sugar Bubble Tea
- 15 Hot Tea Drink Recipes
- Starbucks Chai Latte Copycat
- Matcha Bubble Tea
- Iced Matcha Latte
- Iced Butterfly Pea Flower Tea Latte
Decadent Milk Tea with Brown Sugar
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup water, + more to warm teapot
- 2 teaspoons black tea, (or 1 tea bag or 1 tea sachet)
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- ¼ cup half & half
Instructions
- Boil water.Boil water on the stovetop or use an electric kettle with a temperature setting, setting the water temperature to 208°F. Boil a little more water than needed so that it can be used to warm up the teapot. Filtered water is best since the better the water tastes, the better your tea will taste.
- Warm up teapot.Pour some hot water into a teapot and swirl the water around to warm up the teapot. Discard the water. Now, your teapot is nice and warm to steep tea in.
- Combine tea and hot water in a teapot. Cover and steep for 5 minutes.Make sure the tea is covered in water, and not just sitting on top, to get a full steep.
- Strain tea leaves and pour hot tea into a teacup.
- Stir in brown sugar and add in half & half.Add the sugar right after you pour in your tea so that it can dissolve quickly in the hot tea. The half & half will swirl around in the dark tea. I'm using a generous amount of half & half (¼ cup) but feel free to add as little or as much as you like. Stir before drinking.
Video
Notes
- Since half & half and sugar are being added, you want to make sure the tea is strong and brewed properly with boiling water and steeped for the right amount of time. Weak tea isn’t great for milk tea.
- Everyone has a different level of sweet they like in their tea. Start with a teaspoon of sugar first and add more if needed.
- It’s a good idea to warm up your teapot with hot water before brewing any kind of tea to keep the water hot during the steeping process. This is an extra step all tea professionals take.
- Even though any tea can be used to make milk tea, bold, robust black tea works best if you’re using half & half and brown sugar.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi! I’d really like to try this recipe…only I don’t have half and half. I know I can always get more but are there any good substitutes for half and half?
this is a amazing recipe. I love it so much. it was so creamy and with slight sweet sips at times. thank you for the recipe. (it was also a great to start the day)
I hope everyone here has an amazing day.
Thanks so much for this recipe Jee – I was always searching for the perfect tea to 1/2 & 1/2 ratio and yours gave me the exact taste I was looking for! Since you mentioned trying to make milk tea with oolong instead, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind sharing some good measurements to use for oolong milk tea? I was recently gifted a bunch of oolong tea and I’m trying to make it into milk tea right now! Any tips/suggestions would be really appreciated – thanks in advance 🙂
I tried milk tea yesterday morning and it was tasty! ♥️ While the tea was very hot, I poured the cold half and half. After I did that, the tea turned to warm as a temperature which it is the way I like to drink. Thank you so much for this pin! Have an awesome day!
I used earl gray but followed the rest of the receipe, it was very good! Thank you for sharing this with us.
Would I be able to let this chill in the refrigerator after it is cool to have a nice cold milk tea later? or combine it with ice?
Hi Roses, yes, you can definitely make this iced.
Wanted to clarify the amount of water to use for steeping the tea. From the description in the steps it seems like you boil 1.5 cups but use 1/2 cup of that to heat the teapot. But the ingredients list says “1.5 cups water + more to warm teapot”. Do you use 1 cup or 1.5 cups to steep the tea? Thanks!
Hi Tracy, thanks for asking for clarification — you are right — it’s half cup to warm teapot.
Being from England I would never put half and half in tea; only plain milk. But tastes change with each generation, so enjoy!
thank you for the great info, I will try them this weekend. Certainly my kids will love it. Thanks you!
I tried this recipe last night and it was delicious. I didn’t have half and half so I just used whole milk. I made a teapot full (about 4 cups) using 4 tea bags and enough brown sugar to my tastes. I put my teapot with it in the fridge overnight. By morning the tastes were all blended and much stronger than when it was fresh and hot. I really prefer it after it was refrigerated overnight and served cold. It reminded me of a cup of chilled coffee with how creamy it was and the flavor of the brown sugar gave the tea a unique flavor I’d never had in tea before. I live in the south and love cold iced sweet tea so this recipe was a really great discovery for me. I did try ice in it like I would sweet iced tea but it watered down the flavor too much. I’ll try half and half or heavy whipping cream in it next time. I don’t normally have either on hand so they require a special trip to the store. Thanks for the great recipe! I also plan to try this recipe with a little cinnamon in it or some cocoa powder to make a chocolatey milk tea.
Hi Alice, that sounds delicious! Adding cinnamon or cocoa powder is a great idea!