🍵 Tea with milk

Tea with milk is a drink of brewed tea to which milk is added. Milk tea, or tea with milk, is black tea with milk added. It is drunk in many countries, and a 2025 review of milk in tea uses the United Kingdom as its main example. Milk changes both the taste of tea and its chemistry.

The astringency in tea comes from catechins. Casein in milk binds them: casein micelles are about 200 nm across, and the binding is mostly weak and can be reversible. β-casein binds most strongly. Catechins attached to milk proteins interact less with the proteins in your saliva, so the drink feels less astringent. There is a cost. In measurements, milk lowered the overall antioxidant capacity of tea by 7 to 25%, though up to 2% milk made no change.

In Hong Kong, milk tea has become a craft. The technique for Hong Kong-style milk tea is on the city's list of intangible cultural heritage. Masters mix black tea leaves of different sizes: large leaves give a darker, smoother, more aromatic tea, small leaves a lighter and more pronounced one. The milk is evaporated milk. The tea is brewed in two kettles and strained through a sackcloth bag called a cha daam. It is force-poured from a height at least three times and reheated for one to two minutes. Every master has a personal ratio, and the KamCha competition has been held since 2009.

Other ways of drinking tea with milk are covered on the pages about afternoon tea, English breakfast tea and masala chai. Black tea brewed in water has almost no calories: USDA lists about 1 kcal and 20 mg of caffeine per 100 g. The milk adds the rest.