My girlfriend and I are in love with it and we want to recreate it just as it’s sold in restaurants. I’m not sure if there’s a more specific name for it, but the kind I’m referring to is a sweet, thick, brown tea with some coconut milk poured into it and served on ice.
But how?
I’ve fooled around with a few recipes I’ve found online and asked a few grocers at the local Asian markets, but mostly my efforts fail in the kitchen and in the grocery store the Grocer just makes slightly condescending remarks to me before pointing me in the direction of the “Instant Thai Tea!”.
Any experts on Thai Tea here willing to lend a hand? Or a link perhaps?
Yeah, it’s not coconut milk, you can see in the recipe it’s sweetened condensed milk. Really strong black tea mixed 50/50 with sweetened condesned milk is how I’ve had it.
I don’t know anything about the topic at hand, but I’ll just note that if you haven’t tried the “instant” thai iced tea that the people pointed you at, that might be why you’re failing to recreate the taste you want.
Lots of things that are staples of foreign food restaurants are actually not common to the whole country or, sometimes, even exist there at all. But since the customers expect it, all the restaurants have it. Since its not something that is local to the chef’s home region though, it’s quite possible that he’ll just go with instant since he doesn’t care and its what everyone else uses on the unsuspecting masses.
What the OP is describing is called cha yen, which literally means “cool tea,” as opposed to hot tea. Yes, it’s good, but I prefer the iced coffee they have here. For tea, I prefer cha manao, which literally means “lemon tea.” It has the same look as iced tea in the US but is much more lemony and sweet.
I’ve never seen coconut milk used in cha yen, though. It is always sweetened condensed milk. For iced coffee, too.
Ah, I’ll keep that in mind. The first website I followed misled me.
I actually did buy a bag of the instant stuff since it was pretty cheap and included 10 or so packets. It wasn’t way off, but it tasted a bit weak.
I’ve only ordered it at two establishments. One is Thai House, right on Colonial just a little ways past Bumby going towards Downtown Orlando. Pretty good food; it’s my girlfriend’s favorite. The first place I tried it at was Thai Thani, which is absolutely amazing if you’ve never been. However, since Thai House is closer and cheaper, it’s the one we go to the most. Ever been?
I just want to put in a plug for Somali tea. No one ever talks about Somali tea.
Cinnamon stick, cardamom, cloves. Wrap 'em with paper towel and bang a bit with your smallest pot. Put the bits into the pot with water and a couple of black tea bags; boil. Add A LOT of sugar. Strain into a cup. Sit back, drink, and think FTW.
I’ve only ever been to Royal Thai, on 436 near Colonial, and Thai Singha in Waterford Lakes, which my girlfriend and I both love. We actually went there tonight, and I ordered Thai iced tea after you got me thinking about it. I’ll try your places, but if you’re ever in the Waterford Lakes area, Thai Singha is amazing and has the best pad kee mao (drunken noodles) I’ve ever had.
You know that satisfying feeling you get when you know you’ve beat the system? Well after a few months of tinkering around with the drink, I’ve finally managed to recreate the drink I love so much.
Oh yeah .
No longer will I be paying $3 for a Nirvana in a glass. Oh no! I will be paying $5 for roughly 25 servings of the stuff from here on out.
The problem I kept running into while trying to recreate the drink was that it kept coming out much too weak. Instead of the dark brown, rich drink I was paying for in restaurants, I kept ending up with something orange and watery. Then I stumbled across this “How to” guide with pictures included: Link
I did two things differently from this guy. First thing, I used half as much sugar as him. One cup of sugar is just fine. Secondly, I didn’t use half and half or Coffee Mate as the cream at the end, though I plan on experimenting with the Mate. I instead took one tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk, one and half tablespoon of milk, and frisked them together in a glass with a fork until smooth. Then I topped the cream off with a few dashes of Star Anise for extra flavor.
I could call this the Gilligan’s Island syndrome. Something like coconuts that sound like it should be good just because it seems to go together in an exotic way. But coconut milk would probably be rather crappy with that, or at least not nearly as good.
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