A popular drink in Japan, Royal Milk Tea is made with Assam or Darjeeling tea leaves and milk. You can add sugar or honey to suit your taste. It’s a delicious drink to serve when you have friends over for tea time.
Have you ever heard of Royal Milk Tea (ロイヤルミルクティー) before? It sounds fancy, doesn’t it?
Royal Mik Tea is really popular in Japan and typically available on the cafe menus, and you can also find bottles of royal milk tea in vending machines and convenience stores.
What’s Royal Milk Tea?
Actually, royal milk tea is a Japanese-English word, and (of course) this name does not exist in the UK. The tea company Lipton in Japan invented this product in 1965 as part of its “royal” recipe series (source).
Compared to a typical milk tea, the ratio for milk is much higher so it balances the semi-bitter taste of strong tea with the creamy richness of milk.
The cooking method is similar to Indian Chai. Instead of using a teapot, we use a milk pan or saucepan to make tea. The only difference is that royal milk tea does not include any spices such as cardamoms, ginger, and cinnamon that Chai might include.
Watch How to Make Royal Milk Tea
A delicious and rich drink made with Assam and Darjeeling tea leaves and milk. Add sugar or honey to enhance flavor.
How I Make Royal Milk Tea
There are a number of ways you can prepare the tea to add even more flavor and dimension but the following recipe is how I make royal milk tea.
I do not normally use a measuring cup, and use a teacup to make. However, not everyone has the same size teacup, so I measured it precisely for this recipe. I also included my teacup measuring in parenthesis as well.
Tips for Making Tea
- I recommend using a pre-warmed cup to maintain the temperature of the tea.
- To make dark-colored tea, use Assam tea
- To make light-colored tea, use Darjeeling tea.
Japanese Vending Machine
In Japan, there are vending machines (like the picture below) that sell different kinds of drinks all over the place. My husband and children love them as they can try out many different flavors and they get thirsty often since we walk almost everywhere.
For me, the only drink I love and always get is royal milk tea (my favorite brand is Kocha Kaden (紅茶花伝) and Gogo no Kocha (午後の紅茶). Have you tried them before?
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Royal Milk Tea
Video
Ingredients
To make 1 cup:
- ¾ cup water (75% full with a teacup; preferably use warm water that was heating up the cup first)
- 2 heaping tsp black tea leaves (about 8 g; To make dark-colored tea, use Assam tea and to make light-colored tea, use Darjeeling tea)
- ½ cup milk (for a regular teacup, 50% full)
- sugar (or honey, optional; If you know how much sugar you like to add already, let the sugar dissolve first before pouring into the cup)
To make 2 cups:
- 1 cup water (100% full with a teacup; water is not doubled when you make 2 teacups because evaporation is the same as when you make 1 cup; preferably use warm water that was heating up the cup first)
- 3 heaping tsp black tea leaves (about 12 g; To make dark-colored tea, use Assam tea and to make light-colored tea, use Darjeeling tea)
- 1 cup milk (for a regular teacup, 100% full)
- sugar (or honey, optional; If you know how much sugar you like to add already, let the sugar dissolve first before pouring into the cup)
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients.
- In a milk pan or small saucepan, add warm water and bring to a boil.
- When the water is boiling, add tea leaves and reduce the heat and simmer for 90 seconds to 2 minutes. To make iced royal milk tea: You can cook the tea leaves a slightly little longer so ice will not dilute the flavor as much.
- Add milk and slowly bring just to simmer. Meanwhile keep your serving cup nice and hot with hot water (drain the water before you serve tea).
- When the tea is about to boil, remove from the heat and pour the tea through a tea strainer or fine mesh strainer and into your serving cup.
- Serve with sugar or honey and sweeten it to your liking.
