Pu erh tea with milk: A full recipe guide

If you’re a ‘tea with milk’ lover, the chances are that you’ll either stick to a black tea or go for matcha. Pu erh tea is in fact the last kind of tea people consider to drink with milk.

It’s true that most pure pu erh drinkers don’t drink their tea with milk, but that doesn’t mean that those who do shouldn’t consider pu erh. In fact, we believe that pu erh is one of the best kinds of tea to drink with milk. Compared to black tea, (ripe) pu erh has a much thicker body, and its earthy notes go really well with milk.

In this article, we’re going to share a few recipes so that you can start broadening your horizon with pu erh tea with milk!

Recipe 1: Pu Erh Tea with Milk + Brown Sugar

• Add ice cubes in the glass until it’s fully full.
• Add a strongly steeped ripe pu erh until the glass is half full. If you want to know how to prepare pu erh, see the guide on ‘Preparing Ripe Pu Erh Tea’ below in this article.
• Add cold milk until the glass is almost full. Tip: if you want to have the layered look, make sure to pour the milk slowly over the ice cube to slow down the speed of the milk entering the glass.
• Sweeten the tea with 1 or 2 table spoons of brown sugar.
• Mix and serve.

Recipe 2: Pu Erh Tea with Condensed Milk

If you want to preserve the thick texture of ripe pu erh tea, you can use condensed milk instead of normal milk. Follow these steps:

• Fill the glass with ice cubes.
• Add a strongly brewed ripe pu erh until the glass is 80% full. Now add 2-3 table spoons of condensed milk.
• Mix and it’s ready to drink. Note: there’s no need to sweeten the tea further, as condensed milk is by itself sweet.

Recipe 3: Pu Erh Tea Coffee

If you’ve ever been to Hong Kong, you must know about Yuan Yang, which is a coffee and tea drink. While the original Yuan Yang is made with black tea, we think preparing it with a robust ripe pu erh is even better! These are the steps.

• Fill up the glass with ice cubes.
• Fill up to 60% of the glass with a strongly prepared ripe pu erh tea.
• Add an espresso shot (or 2 if you like it strong).
• Add 2-3 table spoons of sweet condensed milk.
• Stir & serve.

Preparing Ripe Pu Erh Tea

For a single serving of ripe pu erh tea, you can use 4 grams of any kind of ripe pu erh with 200 ml water. Steep this for 10 minutes at full temperature in a vessel and let it cool down for use. For better extraction, we recommend to preheat the teapot through a quick rinse with hot water.

Where to buy ripe pu erh tea?

If you're based in Europe, you can order ripe pu erh from our site and receive it in a matter of days. If your address is outside of Europe, we recommend to visit Teasenz.com ripe pu erh collection. Orders from our teasenz.com website are shipped worldwide from china.

Toppings

To turn your pu erh drink into a boba tea (or ‘bubble’ tea) you can add toppings. We highly recommend one of the following toppings:

• Tapioca pearls. These pearls are made from tapioca powder and have a chewy texture. You can easily get them at a local Asian supermarket. Tip: don’t go for the pearls that can be cooked in 5 minutes or less. These are low in quality and turn hard when they cool down. Either go for ones that take longer (about 1 hour to cook) or if you have time, make them fresh yourself!
• Herbal jelly. If you like a sweet herbal flavour, then herbal jelly can be your choice of topping. These also easily available in local Asian supermarkets. Get the ones in rectangle packs as they’re more easy to cut in cubes.

Further Readings

We recommend to read this article Pu Erh Tea Taste Explained to understand the difference between raw and ripe pu erh.