Oolong Milk Tea Recipe, A Simple Method (2024)

Oolong milk tea is a milky, subtly earthy drink with a mellow sweet aftertaste. It is popular not only in Asia, where it originates, but also in Europe and the States. As more people adopt this Chinese tea variant, here’s our oolong milk tea recipe for you to try out at home.

What is Oolong Tea?

Oolong tea is a traditional Chinese drink. Camellia sinensis leaves are used to prepare it. We would like to make a note that this plant is the same plant that produces green and black tea. However, the method of processing the leaves is different for each variety.

Oolong milk tea gets its characteristic taste and scent from a chemical process known as oxidation. Hence, the level of oxidation of the leaves decides the beverage's flavour profile.

Green tea is completely unoxidized, while black tea is completely oxidized, and oolong tea is in between. For medicinal purposes, it is often served simply steeped in water. However, most people prefer to consume oolong tea with dairy and a sweetener.

Oolong Milk Tea Ingredients

• Oolong tea leaves
• Milk
• Simple syrup

We recommend using white sugar or a simple syrup. These help sweeten the drink without adding any other types of flavour.

We don't recommend brown sugar, as the toffee-like flavour of brown sugar may overpower the subtle taste of Oolong. While honey is an acceptable alternative, we suggest avoiding it where possible. Honey has its own aroma that may interfere with the loose leaf's natural fragrance.

How To Improve The Flavour Of Oolong Milk Tea

To make the best milk tea, you need to make the best tea. Therefore, we emphasise that the best way to enhance the flavour is by brewing it correctly.

We need to steep white, grey, and light blue leaf varieties accordingly. For a strong brew, the steeping process should take about 15 minutes. The water used should be 85-90 degrees Celsius.

As a practical tip, we usually pour boiling water from a kettle into a mug first. After that, we pour the hot water from the mug into the pot of tea to brew the loose leaves. The action of pouring boiling water into a separate container will reduce its temperature so that by the second time, it's poured out. The water temperature should have decreased to under 90 degrees.

However, these are general guides. Be sure to find the instructions for the specific variety of oolong you use.

Oolong milk tea requires a heatproof container, but milk should not be added to the brewing vessel. These should remain as clean as possible to avoid contaminating the leaves. Following our instructions, you can brew the perfect cup every time, even as a novice.

We want to highlight that oolong milk tea can be made easily using a bare-bones framework instead of a rigid recipe. Hence, just like there is no recipe to prepare a cup of coffee, we will provide only a list of suggestions or tips on how to make the beverage.

With our recipe, you can even make a cafe-style boba drink. You can also refer to our video to see how we made milk tea at home. Brewing a larger amount of tea allows you to store it for multiple uses in the future.

How To Make Into A Boba Drink

1. Prepare the base drink as described above, and add 4 tablespoons of brown sugar to the milk as a sweetener. Optionally add a pinch of salt.
2. Add ice cubes to a tall glass. You can adjust the amount of ice to your preference, but try not to exceed half a cup of ice cubes.
3. Add boiled tapioca pearls.
4. Pour in the tea, top with a sprinkle of more sugar, and enjoy.

You can remix the recipe above depending on the type of oolong milk tea taste and flavour you’re craving. To sweeten the drink, you may want to mix it with honey boba or DIY brown sugar syrup for that extra zing.

History Of Oolong Tea

While the origins of the more modern oolong milk tea are well documented, the past has unfortunately forgotten the origin of the black tea.

We found that there are three common legends used to explain the origin of oolong tea, but none can be definitively claimed as fact or disputed.

1. The Tribute Theory

Oolong tea directly originates from an old variety known as “Dragon-Phoenix” tea. The loose-leaf style of this tea looks like dragon tails.

Therefore, it acquired the name “black dragon” or “oo long” (烏龍) tea.

2. The Wuyi Theory

Oolong tea was first grown and created in the Wuyi Mountains. This idea originates from old Qing Dynasty poems.

The name “oolong” refers to the area where people grew the ingredients.

3. The Anxi Theory

It was first discovered by a tea picker who worked with Anxi tea plants. His name was Wu Liang, which later was rendered to “oolong”.

We read that the drink was seen as exotic and mainly consumed as medicine, owing in part to its unknown origins.

Meanwhile, oolong milk tea is an attempt to commodify and diversify this Chinese cultural staple for those with less discerning palates.

Different Types Of Oolong Tea

Oolong tea has different flavour profiles depending on the method of cultivation and production.

It can taste sweet and fruity with honey aromas or woody and thick with roasted aromas. The taste and aroma depend on the plant's horticulture and processing.

We note that different types of this ingredient are used in the production of oolong milk tea.

The two broad categories of leaves are wide, rolled, and long ribbon leaves. However, the teas also differ in their roast levels and oxidation.

Oxidation

Oolong tea's oxidation level ranges between 20% and 60%. The oxidation level of the leaves decides how dark and strong the beverage's taste will be.

We note that Ruan Zhi and Bai Jiguan are some lightly oxidized oolong varieties. On the other end of the spectrum is Shui Xian, one of the darkest teas.

Roast Level

Oolong tea is mostly unroasted. Hence, they have a fuller body and a stronger aroma which is similar to coffee.

For this reason, we observe that roasted variants like Black Oolong are often the preferred variety at Oolong Milk Tea outlets in Western countries, where coffee is more common and socially known.

Varieties Of Milk Tea

Different preparations exist for milk tea. Combined with the wide variety of leaves available in the global market today, the flavour and texture possibilities for this beverage are endless.

We listed below some popular varieties of oolong milk tea to try if you don't want to make it at home.

Pokka Milk Tea

This is a precombined mixture of brewed tea, sugar, and milk. Originating from Singapore, it is available mostly in Southeast Asian countries. The base mixture is used to create more complex preparations of other beverages.

Koi Milk Tea

This is a type of bubble (boba) tea. These drinks contain small globes of tapioca pearls, providing a delightfully chewy counterpoint to the tea flavour. Most boba beverages also contain large amounts of sugar, so avoid them if you want to lose weight. The speciality of Koi tea is the gold colour of the boba pearls, which come from the lesser-known golden brown sugar.

Gong Cha Oolong Milk Tea

Gong Cha is a Chinese chain of boba outlets. They import their own oolong variety and provide many boba beverages containing boba pearls, grass jelly, and even Oreo crumbs. Chatime and Kung Fu Tea are also some of the other leaders in the boba industry.

We see that the possibilities with oolong tea are endless. This is because the tea-loving community does not gatekeep the extent to which the raw tea can be altered or the creative ways it can be utilized.

Oolong Milk Tea Vs Milk Tea

The former is a specific sub-type of milk tea. Unlike other milk teas like chai or matcha, it is a hyper-specific preparation using only one leaf type.

You can opt for an unsweetened variant, especially if you want to lose weight. Raw oolong is said to boost weight loss. Our recipe with whole dairy milk contains less than 200 calories. So, take advantage of this oolong milk tea benefit whenever you can.

We hope you enjoy this in-depth guide to oolong tea and learn to love the history and culture behind the drink as we do.