Thai Tea

Thai tea (also known as Thai iced tea) or "cha-yen" (Thai: ชาเย็น, lit. "cold tea") in Thailand, is a drink made from strongly-brewed ceylon tea. However, due to ceylon tea's high price, plain black tea with added food coloring is commonly used. Other ingredients may include added orange blossom water, star anise, crushed tamarind seed or red and yellow food coloring, and sometimes other spices as well. This tea is sweetened with sugar and condensed milk and served chilled. Evaporated milk, coconut milk or whole milk is generally poured over the tea and ice before serving to add taste and creamy appearance. However, in Thailand, condensed milk and sugar are mixed with the tea before it is poured over ice and then topped with evaporated milk. In Thai restaurants worldwide, it is served in a tall glass, though when sold from street and market stalls in Thailand it is more typically poured over the crushed ice in a clear (or translucent) plastic bag or tall plastic cups. At markets, it can be seen to be mixed through pouring the tea at heights of about 4 feet back and forth. It can also be made into a frappé at more Westernised vendors.

It is popular in Southeast Asia and in many American restaurants that serve Thai food. Although Thai tea is not the same as bubble tea, a Southeast and East Asian beverage that contains large tapioca pearls, Thai tea with tapioca pearls is a popular flavor of bubble tea.

As refrigeration and condensed milk are only recent phenomena, it may be thought that tea has only been drunk in Thailand in the last 100 years or so. This is not the case. In fact, Northern Thailand produces some of the finest loose leaf teas available, and which challenge the more commonly known producers of camellia sinensis such as China, Japan and Taiwan. It has been cultivated and harvested for many, many years. Their varietal produces some of the finest Oolong style teas, prized by a great many tea drinkers. The uptake of the described ‘Thai Tea’ (as above) has been a well utilised marketing tool by others outside Thailand to make the particular beverage appear ‘exotic’, and therefore increase its appeal, while ignoring the far more educated tastes of the teas from the small tea farms that are found in Lanna, the original name for Northern Thailand. In fact, the tea used in ‘Thai Tea’, is of far inferior quality as that produced in Northern Thailand, and comes from the camellia assamica varietal, which originates in the Indian sub-continent. The name ‘Thai tea’ has therefore become synonymous with a chilled drink, containing mostly an extract of tea, with sugar and condensed milk added, as a soft drink.