Milk Black Tea

If you live in NYC, you probably know about the dumpling wars. There is a small cluster of dumpling shops on the lower East Side area and there are constant wars about which is better (and no, Momofuku doesn’t count, we’re talking little dive $1 for 5 dumpling kind of joints!). My favorite is Vanessa’s: not the one in Union Square (which is decent) but the original shop. Not just because of the dumplings which, let’s face it, are very similar from shop to shop. But Vanessa’s has these fantastic sesame pancake sandwiches stuffed with crispy pulled pork or even DUCK. And to top off your greasy, delicious sandwich there’s the world’s best Hong Kong Milk Tea.

As amazingly delicious as HKMT is, it’s laden with calories from the sugar and evaporated milk AND condensed milk. Ugg, but it’s so good! I would love to find a lighter replacement, so I was thrilled to see this from Nature’s Tea Leaf. But can it replicate the wonders of Vanessa’s Hong Kong Milk Tea?

Well, of course it’s not thick and creamy from the milk, but it perfectly captures the condensed/evaporated milk taste. The tea isn’t cloudy so there’s no actual milk bits floating around, it’s just flavoring. Magic flavoring! I cold brewed this and without any sugar or other additions it really does taste like milk tea. Creamy, milk, with that distinct evaporated milk taste and a burst of sweetness. Mmmmm. I think I’m in love!

Oh what a day! I had so many errands to run today and it is freezing outside (well, freezing from a Southerner’s point of view!) I arrived home, weary and chilled, to find a package from Nature’s Tea Leaf waiting for me – oh joy! I instantly decided that this Milk Black Tea would be the perfect cup of comfort to pick me up. The dry leaves smell interesting, but not in a bad way. The aroma reminds me exactly of powdered milk. I love a cup of strong black tea with a little milk and sugar, so this tea definitely appealed to me. The tea leaves are basic, small black leaves but during steeping they really expanded and filled up my little tea pot – very pretty! The tea liquor smells more sweet than the dry leaves. The flavor is very nice with a fresh milk flavor. It’s a little creamy, and the creaminess increases if you add a little milk. I added sweetener and then a little milk, which was perfect for a cold day. I think it would also be nice as a breakfast tea in the summer with just sweetener. All around a very comforting cup!

-Standard small black tea leaves.
-Dry leaves smell strongly of rich milk. Tea liquor aroma is of sweet warm milk.
-Tea liquor is a clear medium brown color.
-Sweet, fresh milk flavor with an evaporated milk finish. Slightly creamy mouthfeel.
-Best with milk and sweetener or just sweetener.
-Very good tea. Fresh and comforting cup.

This is interesting stuff! Good interesting, not the “interesting” you use as a polite adjective you use to avoid hurting somebody’s feelings. The dry leaves smell pleasantly of Carnation Evaporated Milk.

And that’s the flavor that comes through pretty strongly—more milk/sugar with a little tea in it instead of tea with a little milk/sugar in it. And enough caffeine to get you out the door to do what has to be done. (It’s looking like a has-to-be-done day.)

Denise from Nature’s Tea Leaf mentioned that this one is a good blender-inner. Looking forward to trying that soon.

Loose
Appearance: rich, dark med size leaf
Aroma when Dry: creamy, sweet, desserty, butter
After water is first poured: peppery, creamy, sweet, silky, fresh
At end of steep: nutty, creamy, earthy
Tea liquor:
At end of steep: pale brown
Staple? YES
Preferred time of day: afternoon, evening
Taste:
At first: peppery creamy coconut and condensed milk
As it cools ? Gets creamier, reminiscent of cocoa froth, chestnut mixed with almost cashew sweet notes
Additives used (milk, honey, sugar etc)? No

Lingers? Yes, smooth hints of spice, velvety close, almost like a light chai

Want to try chilled

Second steep (3 min)
Aroma: light milky, brothy
Taste:
At first: light, brothy, earthy, salty
As it cools: gets milky again

Third steep (6 min)
very light,milky, brothy, salty

A lovely sample from Nature’s Tea Leaf!

I’m a huge fan of Hong Kong milk tea, so I was interested to see how that would translate into a normal tea that doesn’t need anything mixed in. Amazingly, it’s very spot-on! The black leaves (amusingly mislabeled as “red” on my sample packet. No, I know black when I see it) smell very strongly of condensed milk, hitting your nose as soon as you open the packet. When you pour the water, you can see the milk seep out from the leaves. The brewed smell is quite a bit softer than the leaf smell, but both the tea and milk scents are there. The flavor is one of the smoothest I’ve ever tasted, with the milk and sugar flavors right there in the tea! I suppose you could add extra milk and sugar, but wouldn’t that ruin the point?

I do imagine I’ll be buying the full size in the future. I highly recommend this tea to people who love a good milk tea!

This has a weird weird flavour to me. I can see how it is milky and I can see when it steeps that it has some kind of milk in it, but I don’t know, maybe I’m picky with my milk more than I thought. I only ever buy organic skim milk. The ‘milk’ in this tea tastes very strange to me. It’s not…bad, exactly, but I don’t think I like it very much. I added some more sweetener, but it just made the weird milk flavour more pronounced and put the black tea more in the background, so that wasn’t very helpful. I don’t think I’m going to try to resteep this.

I had been wanting to try a milk black tea and I finally got around to put it in my tumbler on my way out the door this morning.

This tea tastes to me as if I had brewed some black tea and added some milk, in just the right mix. It is great as a morning tea and while I took it without honey, I think with a teaspoon of honey this would be perfect -