Milk and Sugar in Tea. A generally ignored topic in my mind. Friends, I’ve been sitting on these notes for a couple years. Hidden away in a folder, in a box, in my basement — finally I need them. As I am tasting through my earl grey, wanting to add sugar and milk to it for improvement (or nostalgia’s) sake. I know there is a formula I came up with years ago, through vigorous testing. Lets get into it. This article is taken directly from my notes, in the order my tests were conducted.
Milk Section:
Milk Tea Bewed with Boiling Water for 2 Minutes:
Using 1:50 and 1:25 ratios of Dian Hong black tea (both brewed stronger than I would normally call acceptable) I will note that 1:50 has noticeable but tolerable astringency. 1:25 has strong, unacceptable astringency and sourness.
1:50 Strength
1:1 (Tea:Milk) milky, almost cheesy notes dominate, light-ish? Easy drinking, worth exploring more
2:1 Seems a bit watery though not too much. Cheesy notes are gone. It has lost being interesting.
1:2 Mostly feels like drinking milk. Kind of reminds me of Kraft Dinner.
1:25 Strength
1:1 (Tea:Milk) brain takes a couple of seconds to process what’s going on, there is a wall of flavor that hits all at once.
2:1 Big wall, a jumbled up mess of flavor where nothing stands out
1:2 Too milky, tastes just like milk but the texture is foreign
What have I learned so far?
Regardless of the teas strength, the double vs half style of blending is not suitable. Close to 1:1 seems much more ideal. I’m going to prepare a 1:40 strength brew to practice further.
1:40 Strength
1:1 (Tea:Milk) Complex, creamy, cheesy sweet, texture and flavor is good
1:1.5 too milky
1:1.3 better than 1.5, still too milky, floral notes are entering into the milk
1:1.1 pretty much the same impression as 1:1…
1.4:1 I like it! The tea notes are clearer, you can clearly perceive the astringency and its subsequent nullification by the fat of the milk
1.2:1 For unexplainable reasons, I like it less than 1.4:1
1.5:1 Clear tea notes, no longer has the perception of astringency like 1.4:1 had.
What have I learned so far?
It’s better to be heavier on the tea side than the milk side, even when the tea is concentrated. That being said, 1:1 still seems fine.
**Issue** I would still prefer if the tea had more impact than this. I will make the base slightly stronger 1:35 and steep the tea for an additional minute (3 minutes total). I’m also going to switch the milk from regular homogenized to UHT milk at the same fat content.
1:35 @ 3m Strength
1:1 (Tea:Milk) Rich, weak tea flavor, mostly milk
1.5:1 tea flavor was clearer, it’s light and easy drinking. I want more tea power.
1.7:1 What’s going on, does this milk suck? This infusion is very flat and boring.
2:1 Milky, flat, I can feel the tannins[note from future me as I’m writing this article out: I wonder why I didn’t do a 1.4:1 test…?]What have I learned?
This current milk I’m using “Joyya” has 75% more protein and 25% less sugar than regular milk. I don’t know how the protein might affect the flavor balance, but surely the drop in sugar is removing a lot of intensity. This needs to be accounted for. 3 minutes of steeping might have been detrimental to the tea as well. The milk I was drinking yesterday may have been on the cusp of spoiling and (if that’s the case) I must not have noticed? Perhaps that could be what contributed to the cheesy notes I’m not getting today. I’m going to continue my tests with this milk. I’m going to revert to 2 minute steeps. I will heat the milk with my espresso machine’s steaming wand. That will bring out some sweetness in it (I think)
1:35 @ 2m Strength
1:1 Tea:Hot Milk The drink tastes like milk, it seems watery.
2:1 Hmm…. sugar is so important eh?
What have I learned?
It would be insane to continue these experiments with only milk (at least if using this Joyya UHT) because the tea brewed in this manner does not taste good by itself. It’s too astringent and too sour. It seems counter-intuitive to use a recipe that doesn’t taste good to begin with. On one hand, I believe I can utilize these negative flavors to my advantage because I can cancel them out with fat and sugar and retain the benefits of the extra flavor without the negatives. I’ll play around with sugar content for a bit and see if anything interesting happens.
Sugar Section:
The following tests will be done using ‘raw sugar’ aka turbinado sugar
Tasting Black Tea with Sugar:
1:35 Strength Tea @ 2 minutes with boiling water. This is my control brew without sugar added. You can smell and taste the briskness of the tea. It gets mulchy tasting but not offensively. In my opinion it’s brewed too strongly. There is a sour spike just past the mid-palate that remains throughout the finish.
1:35 Tea with
1:100 Sugar:Tea The astringency is unaffected. The perception of sour has changed. There is a new flavor added (sugar) though at this ratio the flavor is mild.
1:90 The astringency remains, the flavor of the sugar is more obvious now. There is no perception of sourness. Perhaps teas are flavored with lemon to remove this unwanted flavor of sugar?
1:80 The astringency remains, sweetness is playing a major role in the experience. The finish is getting less desirable the more sugar I add. How would I describe this flavor… pungent? oily? rancid? like blackhead/nose oil, hair oil, like the smell of the underside of an old unwashed hat.
1:70 the astringency is affected! it’s becoming less noticeable because the sweetness is grabbing all the attention. The flavor seems magnified in a way I didn’t notice with the previous tests.
1:60 this seems to be commercially sweet. The finish is gross and sugary in the same pungent and oily way described in 1:80. The basic flavor of the solution is quite loud. I would suspect both Brisk and Nestea have about this ratio of sugar/sweetness.
Going sweeter than this seems pointless, because I am introducing new problems that the added sugar is causing, when sugar is supposed to be the solution.
What have I learned?
Sugar can be used to remove sour flavors at a ratio of 1:100 and perhaps even weaker with the trade off of adding the flavor of sugar which must be taken into consideration. At 1:90 I would say the sourness of tea (at least this example) is removed completely. At 1:70 and stronger, sugar magnifies some of the teas basic flavors, 1:60 seems to be the limit.
Milk Tea with both Sugar and Milk
Putting together some pieces of information I’ve learned, I will combine Joyya milk (heated) with tea brewed at 1:35@2m that has been sweetened at a 1:100 sugar level.
2:1 (Tea:Milk) The tea has a nutmeggy finish. The tea is light, delicate, and has a good balance.
1.5:1 milky, not enough tea flavor. It is interesting to compare the tea to just the hot milk. The milk flavor is very different.
1:1 The flavor of the milk briefly appears. The unwanted sugary flavor is here.
What have I learned?
My current thoughts are that I need to shake things up a bit. 1:35 is strong, but this drink doesn’t register as a strong drink to me. I think I need to understand the threshold of tannin more. I will do a 1:35 @ 5 minute infusion which should be an absolute mess of flavor and test. It will be sour, so I will attempt to nullify that with sugar. I can test to see if my theory holds up. I suppose based on this data I could write a formula that is relevant to at least this dian hong tea and sugar.
1:35 @ 5 minutes
The flavor of the tea really isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It is sour and astringent. I will abandon my plans outlined above in favor of gut instinct and inspiration. I will use a 1:70 sugar ratio for its magnification properties.
Once the sugar was added, I described the flavor of the tea as being sharp but not sour. It is still astringent. It is most definitely bigger, and bolder.
1:1 (Tea:Milk) hm.. malty caramel
10:1 it still has some astringency, the finish is dry as if it wants to be astringent but cannot, the flavor of the sugar is obvious.
4:1 That’s pretty good. I guess 3:1 would be better though.
3:1 Yes. This was good. Very good.
2:1 Also good… but the milk flavor is peeking out, which I don’t want.
What have I learned?
I must try 1:60 sugar, and try introducing heavy cream. I will accept 3:1 (Tea to milk) as my golden ratio for now.
1:35 @ 5 minutes with 1:60 Sugar using 18% milk fat cream
3:1 (Tea:Milk) delicious, creamy, sharp, but I can’t really taste the tea.
6:1 Tea flavor is much stronger, might be able to feel the tannins
12:1 Tea flavor is stronger still, astringency is definitely present.
9:1 good, let’s continue with this, but the sweetness needs adjustment?
8:1 better..
7:1 too even in balance, 8:1 was better because now the texture is watery instead of creamy.
5:1 watery
8:1 again… this is better than both 5:1~7:1
10:1 good, sweetness needs adjusting, needs to be sweeter.
Doing a side by side same ratio with Joyya milk and 18% cream showed me the clarity of flavor is better with Joyya milk.
This concluded my tests, perhaps I got busy with life. It seems I could have gone further, maybe I will one day. If this helps you accomplish something, I’m glad to aid your quest. It would be cool to hear from you, because it seems like I’m writing these articles and throwing them into the void. It’s not satisfying.
TL;DR:
1g:60g ratio of sugar:tea will give you commercial sweetness in a drink, 1:70 seems more artisanal
3:1 is the golden ratio of tea:milk
Don’t forget milk has sugar, and some milk has more than others, this can be enhanced by heating the milk
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