Ceylon black tea
The base of Hong Kong milk tea is coarse Ceylon black tea: broken leaf (BOP, BOF) and dust with a little Lipton, pulled through a cloth bag again and again for that astringent, smooth cup; iced lemon tea, 茶走 and 鴛鴦 all start from the same brew. The café blends themselves have not turned up on any Australian shelf, so the exact blend is a specialist item. The household version is a loose black tea (Lipton Yellow Label, for example) or torn bags for the body, any loose Ceylon BOP for the colour, brewed long, strained through cloth, with evaporated milk. Sri Lankan grocers (Homebush West and Pendle Hill in Sydney, Dandenong in Melbourne) sell loose dust and BOPF cheaply, the nearest thing to café tea.
Cautions: read first
- Contains caffeine.
Preparation
Thirty grams of leaf to 800 ml of boiling water, steeped eight minutes and strained through cloth, makes the tea base.
Origin
Sri Lanka (Ceylon). Black tea at every supermarket (Lipton, for example); the café's milk-tea base has not been seen for sale in Australia; loose dust and BOPF at Sri Lankan grocers.
Availability in Australia
Easy to find
Where · Every supermarket (Lipton, Dilmah); loose dust at Sri Lankan grocers (Homebush West, Pendle Hill, Dandenong); Tsit Wing tea bags at MikoPlace AU online
What to ask for · At a Sri Lankan grocer ask for BOPF or dust
If it is not there · The Hong Kong café blends (Tsit Wing, Lam Kie Yuen) are not on Australian shelves; blend Lipton with Dilmah
The exact café blend is a specialist item; a workable one is common.
