Tea with milk: which teas to choose, and how to make it

Which tea should you choose for tea with milk?

For tea with milk, choose a robust, malty black tea: an Assam, a high-grown Ceylon or a breakfast blend. These teas have enough tannins and body for the milk to round them out without masking them. Broken leaves, such as those of English Breakfast or Ethelwold GBOP, quickly give a dense, deeply coloured infusion, which turns a light caramel colour once the milk is poured in.

Whole-leaf Assams also take milk very well. Chardwar FTGFOP1 is described on its product page as one of the teas that hold up best to it, the English way; Bhubrighat, more gourmand, plays on cocoa and praline. As for Ceylon, Saint James BOP, a tea from the Uva region, rounds out with a dash of cold milk without losing its aroma.

The steeping time varies from one tea to another: 2 minutes for Ethelwold GBOP, whose broken leaf gives everything very quickly, 5 minutes for Saint James BOP. Follow the time on the product page, without extending it to “strengthen” the tea before adding milk. To understand where these differences in body come from, our guide to the main styles of black tea compares black teas, from Assam to Yunnan.

Should milk go in before or after the tea?

The most widespread practice today is to pour the tea first, then the milk. An article by McGill University's Office for Science and Society notes that almost all guides now recommend this; its author found no independent study that settles the question. The writer George Orwell already defended this order in his essay A Nice Cup of Tea: by pouring the tea first, you measure the milk exactly.

The other camp has its arguments. The ISO 3103 standard, which describes a tasting method for professionals to compare teas, puts the milk in the bowl before the infusion, so as not to scald it. The standard itself states that this is not a rule for the everyday cup. As for the idea that milk poured first protected delicate porcelain, McGill considers it hard to verify.

Our advice is therefore practical: pour the tea, then the milk little by little, tasting as you go. You see the colour of the cup change and stop when it suits you, which is impossible if the milk is already at the bottom.

How do you make tea with milk, step by step?

The method comes down to four steps. It works for English Breakfast as well as for an unflavoured Assam or a flavoured tea.

1. Weigh out the measure given on the product page, usually 2.5 g per 200 ml, and heat the water to the indicated temperature, 95 °C for the black teas in this guide. Do not reduce the measure: it is what gives the tea the body it needs to take the milk.

2. Steep for the exact time on the product page, then remove the leaves or the cotton muslin. Beyond that, the product pages warn, astringency takes over, especially with broken leaves.

3. Pour the tea into the cup, then add the cold milk in a thin stream, a dash to begin with. Taste before adding more.

4. Sweeten if you wish. A stick of brown rock sugar, such as the Sticks de Sucre Candi Brun, dissolves gently in the hot cup and, according to its product page, gives a rounder, slightly caramelised flavour than white sugar.

The precise settings for each type, from white tea to pu-erh, are gathered in our guide to steeping time and water temperature.

Which milk should you put in tea?

Cow's milk remains the classic companion to black tea, and it is poured cold into freshly steeped tea. George Orwell advised skimming milk that was too rich, which in his view gave the cup a sickly taste. Between whole and semi-skimmed milk, choose according to the roundness you are looking for, and always pour little by little.

Plant-based drinks are poured the same way, after steeping and in a thin stream. Each brings its own flavour: an almond drink, for example, adds an almond note to the cup. Choose a plain drink with no added sugar, to keep control of the sweetness, and taste with a small amount before pouring more.

Gourmand and spiced teas: winter teas with milk

Black teas flavoured with notes of caramel, chocolate or spices make cold-season teas with milk. Wedding Imperial, an Assam with chocolate and caramel flavours, becomes with a dash of milk a creamy afternoon cup, which its product page compares to a light hot chocolate. Esprit de Noël tea, with cinnamon, almond and apple, is enjoyed plain or with a dash of milk, in the afternoon as well as in the evening.

Milky Blue Caramelo is the exception: it is a highly oxidised oolong tea from Colombia, likened to black tea for its roundness. Its notes of caramel and cocoa already evoke dulce de leche, and its product page notes that a dash of milk accentuates its creaminess. Its cousins in the collection, Milky Blue and Milky Blue Absolu, are by contrast enjoyed plain: their product pages consider milk redundant, as their milky note is already in the cup.

For a frothier drink, tea with milk becomes a latte: our Earl Grey London Fog recipe doubles the measure of tea and tops it with hot whisked milk, and homemade chai simmers black tea with milk and spices.

From English-style tea to Mongolian salted tea: tea with milk around the world

Tea with milk is not just a British habit. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, it is drunk with a dash of milk, a tradition often linked to ties with India, where chai is made with milk and a blend of spices, masala. In Mongolia, süütei tsai is drunk salted, more rarely sweetened.

In Southeast Asia, Malaysia and Singapore have teh tarik, a black tea with milk, and Viêt-Nam its trà sữa. Taiwan is the home of bubble tea, a milk tea served with tapioca pearls, now found in Chinese communities all over the world.