mf's teh challenge

I lived right above a coffee shop for more than 20 years. Yet it wasn't until 2006 that I learnt about the different ways to order coffee and tea at a coffee shop. See this post and item 3 at the end of this post.

In the past two or three weeks, I was thinking about milk tea. Here are my past attempts before today..

Teh
Steep a Lipton tea bag in just-boiled water. Add sugar and milk.
Verdict: 3/10 = fail!

Teh halia 1
Boil grated ginger in a cup of water for 10 min. Steep a Lipton tea bag in the ginger water. Add sugar and milk.
Verdict: 1/10 = fail!

Teh halia 1
Steep a Lipton tea bag in just-boiled water. Add milk and instant ginger and honey mix.
Verdict: 4/10 = still fail!

I think it's because those teh's I made were all angmoh teh - I used breakfast milk instead of condensed milk! I need to get condensed milk!!

So fast forward to today... This afternoon, a few of us went to the Korean supermarket to buy food for the party this Saturday. Besides groceries, I also bought some Korean fried chicken and decided to make nasi lemak for dinner.

(Wait, I'll get to the teh..)

Very yummy - garlic chicken and sweet and spicy chicken! $18.77 for 14 pieces!



And the resulting dish :) Got little charred bits in the rice :) And got curry vege leh! Made using tikka masala paste though, haha! And wonbok instead of cabbage :p



So, it occurred to me that I should have some teh to go with the nasi lemak! *brilliant*

But! I have also brilliantly forgot to buy condensed milk!! Argh!! So I googled and found ways to make condensed milk! :) But! Most recipes require milk powder which I don't have. The one recipe that uses breakfast milk takes too long to boil it down.

But :) I also realised something - if condensed milk can be made from boiling down milk, and we add that back to a cup of teh, then I could just steep tea in milk la! *BRILLIANT!*

So I poured a cup of milk into a pot and when it got hot, I dumped the Lipton tea bag inside. I thought to steep it longer since I couldn't and shouldn't bring the milk to a rolling boil. And here's the wonderful result :)



Verdict: 8/10 = pass!! :)

Well, it's more 茶奶 than 奶茶 :p But after a while, the colour got darker and the taste got stronger. Then I realised that it wasn't teh. No, it was teh-C! :)

Ok, to be honest, I've not had teh-C at a coffee shop so I don't know if it tastes exactly like teh-C but I think it's like the Lipton tea with evaporated milk and sugar that Mother used to make every time we had fried rice! (And sidetrack - we also had fried rice and tea on National Day cos we wanted to watch the parade and the usual dinner would take too much time to prepare and clean up!)

So now I've found a teh I can make here. Will experiment and see if I can make teh halia :) But I think I'll use 2/3 milk and 1/3 water the next time - it was such a filling drink!