Thai Iced Tea (Cha Yen)

The colour is the first question everyone asks. Thai iced tea is not naturally that shade of orange - commercial Thai tea mix contains food colouring, which is why a cup made with plain black tea comes out brown and tastes almost identical.

If the colour matters to you, buy the mix. If it does not, strong black tea with star anise and cardamom gets you most of the way there.

Two milks, two jobs

Condensed milk is sweetened and thick, and it goes in hot so it dissolves into the tea and sweetens the whole glass. Evaporated milk is unsweetened, thinner and just dense enough to sit on top of chilled tea for a few seconds before sinking. That is the swirl.

Swapping one for the other does not work. Use only condensed and it is cloying with no float; use only evaporated and it is not sweet enough to balance the tannin.

Steeping time is the one thing to get right

Black tea releases its aromatic compounds early and its tannins late. Five minutes off the boil gives you a strong, aromatic brew. Ten minutes gives you something astringent and drying that no amount of condensed milk will rescue.

Set a timer and strain properly. Leaving the leaves in while it cools is the most common way this goes wrong.

Sweeten hot, chill fully

Sugar dissolves readily in hot liquid and stubbornly in cold. Add it to the hot tea, stir until you cannot feel grains on the bottom of the pan, and then chill.

Chilling fully also matters for a practical reason: warm tea melts the ice on contact, and by the time it reaches the table you have a diluted glass of pale tea. Cold tea over a full glass of ice stays strong.

Making it lighter

The traditional version is properly sweet - roughly 33 grams of carbohydrate a glass, most of it sugar. Halving the sugar and using evaporated milk for both the mixing and the float gives you something closer to a spiced milk tea, still good and considerably less sweet.

For a dairy-free version, oat milk floats reasonably well and its natural sweetness compensates for cutting the condensed milk. Coconut milk works but takes the drink somewhere else entirely.

Serving

Cha yen is street food and it is served in a bag with a straw as often as in a glass. At home, tall glasses packed to the brim with ice are the right call - underfilling with ice is why homemade versions taste watery halfway down.

Make the tea base in a double batch and keep it in the fridge for up to three days. Then it is a fifteen-second drink.