Thai Iced Tea

Bjorn and I have always loved Thai food – it’s one of our favorite cuisines, whether we’re cooking at home or going out to eat. I studied abroad in Cambodia and fell in love with curry even more so then, and I’m lucky to have a husband who enjoys it just as much as I do! 🙂

At most Thai restaurants, there are a couple delicious drinks on the beverage menu: Thai Iced Coffee and Thai Iced Tea.

If you’re unfamiliar with these beverages, they are basically creamy sweet versions of coffee or tea, served over a tall glass of ice! Thai Iced Coffee is dark brown with lots of white swirled in, and Thai Iced Tea is typically an orange beverage with the same beautiful white swirls! These sugary cold drinks go really well with spicier food because they help to cut the heat, but who am I kidding — they’re amazing at any time of day and with any meal. Full disclosure: they are not a low-calorie drink. I look at them as pretty much a dessert in a glass!

Bjorn and I often make Thai Red Curry and fresh spring rolls at home, so one day we thought, why not try recreating a Thai drink as well, to go along with our supper?

We looked up countless recipes, researched how Thai street vendors make their Thai Iced Tea, and watched multiple YouTube videos on the topic. We started with brewing Lipton tea, but eventually graduated to some authentic Thai tea, which was SO worth it and made a huge difference. It was a bit tricky to nail down the exact ingredients and correct proportions of them, but at this point we are quite confident in the recipe we’ve come up with! We feel it’s pretty consistent with the Thai Iced Tea we’ve enjoyed at Thai restaurants! And it’s safe to say that we’re a bit obsessed with it right now. It’s a fun treat, and we’ve even made glasses of it for guests recently!

When I posted about this tea on Instagram, I received multiple requests for the recipe. So today, I’m excited to finally be sharing our Thai Iced Tea recipe with you! If you end up trying it at home, please let me know what you think!

Thai Iced Tea Recipe:

(Makes 2 servings)

Gather:

• Authentic Thai Iced Tea Mix (Number One Brand)
  • (Really. I HIGHLY recommend getting this if you’re looking for that authentic flavor. We did try brewing strong black tea with Lipton tea bags, initially, but it wasn’t the same.)
• White sugar
• Sweetened condensed milk
• Evaporated milk
• Ice (cubed or crushed, although some sources recommend crushed)

** As far as tools and utensils go, we use a 2-cup glass measuring cup, as well as my Adagio ingenuiTEA Tea Maker. You will need an infuser or something to steep the loose leaf tea in.

What to Do:

Heat 2 cups of water until boiling.

Scoop 2 teaspoons of the Thai Tea Mix into your loose leaf tea infuser. Steep it for about 10 minutes, until quite dark.

Strain the prepared tea into a 2-cup measuring cup.

Add 3 heaping Tablespoons of white sugar and stir.

Place the tea in the refrigerator to cool down. You want it to be more lukewarm than hot. (Sometimes we expedite this process by putting the tea in the freezer for about 15 minutes.)

Remove the tea from the refrigerator. Add 3 heaping Tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk and stir well. You’ll see the tea become that beautiful orange color!

Fill 2 glasses 3/4 of the way full with ice. Pour the prepared tea over the ice, dividing it evenly between the 2 glasses.

For each glass, spoon 2 Tablespoons of evaporated milk on top. You can give it a little stir if you’d like!

** We keep our leftover sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk in glass containers in the fridge, instead of storing them in their cans. They keep for about 3-4 days in the fridge this way.

There you are! We hope you enjoy making this fun Thai Iced Tea recipe as much as we do!