For all those tea lovers craving something warm and creamy once in awhile, there’s a growing trend towards combining tea and milk. And I don’t mean just the traditional method of pouring some into your cup of Earl Grey…
During my travels in the US, I’ve sampled a number of tea lattes, or tea with steamed milk. Argo (this place is what Starbucks is to coffee here) combines their Armenian mint tea as a base with steamed, frothy milk on request. There’s also a cute little café by me in Brooklyn that does what it calls a London Fog. It’s the same Earl Grey you’re used to drinking but with served in a tall glass with plenty of steamed and super frothy milk.
Of course, the idea of milk and tea is nothing new. In many parts of Asia, they have a tradition of combining condensed milk with black tea, which not only gives it a creamier flavour, but adds a nice sweetness as well. The most popular example of this would of course be Malaysia’s famous Teh Tarik, or pulled tea (pictured above). The act of pouring the tea from one cup to another - at amazing distances!- gives this tea a nice, frothy top very similar to a cup of cappuccino. As much fun to watch as it is to drink!
