Thai Iced Tea Recipe from Scratch: Mix or Spices

Thai iced tea, or Cha yen, is a bright orange, sweet, milky tea that can be replicated at home in less than 15 minutes. Learn how to make Thai tea over the stove, using a French press, or with tea bags from scratch.

For the first method of making Thai iced tea at home, we'll use a loose-leaf Thai tea mix, which gives us the same authentic taste as we would get from the streets of Thailand. However, if you can't get the premade mixture, try our last method: black tea bags and a blend of spices.

We've made all three Thai milk tea recipes for gatherings, which have always been a hit among our friends. It's one of our top favourites from all the different drink recipes we've made, and it's simple to make.

While it's best to enjoy it fresh, it also works perfectly to make a large batch ahead of time as long as you only add ice once you want to serve. We've also listed some ways to prepare this rich, refreshing drink to quench your cravings using some close substitutes.

Jump to:

• What is Thai Tea?
• Thai Iced Tea Ingredients
• How To Make Thai Tea using Thai Tea Leaves
• How to make Thai Tea with a French press
• Thai Tea Mix Ingredients From Scratch
• How To Make Thai Tea Mix (Black Tea Bags and Thai Tea Spices)
• Thai tea leaves vs powder mix
• Cooking Tips
• How To Enjoy
• Thai Iced Tea Recipe from Scratch (Mix or Spices)
• Why is it orange?
• How should Thai Tea taste like?
• Calories

What is Thai Tea?

Thai tea is a sweet and creamy beverage from Thailand made of black tea, spices, sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and sugar.

However, Thai iced tea is also made outside Thailand with heavy cream or half-and-half poured over black tea and sugar. Both options are equally delicious, but we prefer making the traditional version using condensed and evaporated milk as it's richer and creamier.

Similar to boba, there are different stories behind the origin of Thai milk tea. Some think a Thai chef added milk to tea to cater to a leader's taste for food with a Western twist. Meanwhile, another famous tale says that pouring sweet, milky tea over ice started during the reigns of King Rama IV and King Rama V in the late 19th century.

Thai Iced Tea Ingredients

Here are the Thai tea ingredients you’ll need for a quick yet tasty drink: 

• Thai tea mix
• Sweetened condensed milk
• Evaporated milk
• Salt
• Brown sugar (optional)

If you want to make this drink from scratch, skip to our next section on using black tea bags and Thai tea spices instead of a premade mix.

Thai tea mix

The critical ingredient for our recipe is the premade Thai iced tea mix. This is usually Assam black leaves mixed with the right amount of spices and already has food colouring inside.

While many brands sell this type of premade mix, we recommend using Cha Tra Mue. Cha Tra Mue is one of the most popular brands in Thailand to make Thai iced tea. It gives us perfect results every time.

In addition, you can use Cha Tra Mue in tea bag form to make the brewing process even quicker and easier.

Evaporated and sweetened condensed milk

Evaporated and sweetened condensed milk are essential for our recipe as they serve a unique purpose. Sweetened condensed milk gives the perfect sweetness, while evaporated milk gives a lovely creamy texture without adding more sweetness.

To make 1 cup of Thai iced tea, we like to add 2-3 teaspoon of condensed milk and 2 tablespoon (6 tsp) of evaporated milk.  This results in a creamy but mildly sweet Thai iced tea. In other words, our ratio is close to 1:2 of condensed to evaporated milk.

From experimenting, we think most restaurants and street vendors would use a 1:1 ratio. For example, they might use 2 tablespoons of condensed milk and 2 tablespoons of evaporated milk in one cup. While it's exhilarating to drink occasionally, this is too sweet (and sinful) for our taste buds.

Our recipe uses a mix of evaporated and condensed milk, but we have seen other recipes use only one or heavy cream to add creaminess and sugar for sweetness.

While evaporated and condensed milk adds sweetness and creaminess, it's better to think they serve different purposes. Condensed milk adds a thicker, syrup-like sweetness, while evaporated milk adds creaminess to the drink.

We suggest using heavy cream or half-and-half if you don’t have any of these. These are both less traditional options but give you something close texture-wise.

Milk

You can also use dairy milk, but your drink won’t turn out as thick and sweet as it would with a mix of evaporated and condensed milk.

However, from what we've experimented with, many non-dairy types also work well for our recipe. Although it's not traditional, we quite like using coconut milk.

It gives a notably lighter texture and adds a tropical tang, which is the thing if you like fruity notes in your beverages. Soy, almond, and oat milk also worked well, giving us a less creamy texture.

Salt

Just like adding salt to desserts like cookies enhances the flavour, this also works well for Thai iced tea. A small pinch of salt per cup will bring its flavour to the next level.

Sugar (optional)

We don't add brown sugar when we’re using a premix like Cha Tra Mue since sugar’s already inside. Also, the combination of sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk makes it sweet enough for us. 

However, if you’re using heavy cream or half-and-half to replace evaporated and condensed milk in your Thai tea, we suggest adding some brown sugar for sweetness.

We recommend not using honey, stevia or other non-sugar sweeteners to replace brown sugar. From our kitchen tests, these other sweeteners added a subtle floral taste, which didn’t go well with the drink. Nevertheless, if you add another sweetener, add this in small increments to find the right balance.

Other Toppings

Besides these few ingredients, you can add more food colouring, ice, and whipped cream. Occasionally, you will also see people mix in things like tapioca pearls, crystal jelly boba, and cincau.

How To Make Thai Tea using Thai Tea Leaves

The process of making Thai iced tea using a Thai tea mix is simple.

1. Add water to a pot, followed by the Thai tea mix. Generally, you want to brew 1.25 cups per serving as we want to compensate for some water evaporating during brewing. 
2. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer for 3 to 5 mins. Simmer for longer for a more prosperous, stronger tea taste.
3. Pour the brewed tea into separate cups while filtering out the leaves and spices.
4. Stir in the evaporated milk, then the condensed milk and a pinch of salt.

Thai tea is best-served cold. The fragrant sweetness of the drink is more vivid when it’s slightly cooler. If you want to drink iced Thai tea immediately, pour it over ice. If you prefer drinking it as a hot beverage, we recommend allowing it to cool slightly and drinking it warm.

How to make Thai Tea with a French press

Making Thai iced tea with a French press is great if you want some convenience. It’s relatively mess-free and still gives a good result. 

1. Boil water in a kettle and pour it into your French press until half full. Let it sit for about 1 minute to allow the French press to warm up. Then, discard the water. 
2. Add the premix tea, then pour over boiling water. Cover the french press and let it brew for 10-12 minutes. You can let it sit longer if you want a richer base.
3. Pour it into a glass and add your evaporated milk, condensed milk and pinch of salt. 

This will result in a medium-rich tea base, which is lovely. We highly recommend this method if you like a milder Thai tea.

But if you're adamant about having a rich Thai iced tea closer to what you get at restaurants, go for the stove-brewing method. However, this will not work for making your Thai tea mix using whole spices.

Thai Tea Mix Ingredients From Scratch

You can make your Thai tea mix if you can’t get a premade mix, and it’s relatively easy to do so, too. 

Here are the ingredients to make your Thai tea mix:

• black tea bags
• whole star anise
• green cardamom pods
• ground turmeric
• brown sugar
• vanilla extract

We like making Cha yen from fresh spices as both the taste and aroma of the spices are more vivid. Although using the premix Thai milk tea is more authentic and convenient, brewing your own mix will result in something more impactful and memorable.

Tea bags

The most important of the ingredients is, of course, the tea. The variety of Thai iced tea leaves used in this drink is usually red assam leaves since this variety is grown in Thailand.  However, some simple, strong, brewed black tea will work just as well. 

Try to steer clear of complex varieties in flavour like smoked lapsang souchong. Blends with a smokiness or added flavours will conflict with the spices and muddle the taste of your drink. Also, light tea leaves like green tea, oolong tea, and jasmine tea won’t work either. 

In our experience, there’s not much difference in taste between using loose tea leaves or tea bags. We use tea bags for an easier clean-up afterwards. Instead, how you brew the tea is a more critical factor.

Thai Tea Spices

Brewing the leaves with various Thai tea spices will enhance the flavours. If you want to make it from scratch, here are the spices that you will need to find:

• 2 whole star anise
• 6 pods of green cardamom lightly crushed
• Cinnamon (optional)

For our easy Thai tea recipe from scratch, we’re keeping it simple with the spices so as not to overcomplicate the drink. 

Star anise adds a liquorice-like sweetness and fragrance to the drink, while Green cardamom adds a citrus-like taste. 

You can also add cinnamon, but this is optional. When we added cinnamon, it tasted closer to a sweet masala chai. Therefore, we don’t add it in our Thai iced tea recipe.

If it’s your first time using spices, be patient with letting the flavours slowly come through and remember that less is more. You want to avoid adding too many spices, which might overpower the base flavour.

Brown Sugar

Brown sugar is a must to add a layer of toffee-like sweetness to the base.

While you can replace it with white sugar, you will not get the same sweetness. We don’t recommend honey as it is too fragrant and may overpower other fragrances and flavours.

Vanilla Extract

This is essential for the fragrance of Thai tea. The Cha Tra Mue mix is fragrant, and adding vanilla extract will help bring it closer to the authentic Thai tea mix.

Food Colouring

You can use 1-2 drops of yellow food colouring to get the signature orange. Alternatively, add 1 teaspoon of turmeric if you want natural food colouring. 

Adding turmeric is optional, as we only add it to make the drink yellowish. The combination of yellow turmeric and dark brown from the tea will produce a lighter brown hue to the overall drink. It won’t be as bright and orangey as a premade Thai tea mix, but it’s close enough using natural ingredients.

The other benefit of adding turmeric is its antioxidant properties. However, turmeric can add a slight earthy taste to the drink’s flavour profile, which some people may not like. For us, we didn’t notice the earthy flavour. 

In addition, another thing to be mindful of is ground turmeric can leave small sediments in your drink. This can make the drink’s texture to be slightly grainy or sandy. However, using a sock filter, which is the traditional method of making this drink, will solve the issue.

Alternative Thai Tea Bases

While we were experimenting with making our own Cha yen base, there were 2 other mixes which we quite liked. We didn’t use these for the final recipe as they were much more fragrant and spicier than the premade Thai tea mix.

Thai Tea Base (Mid spicy)

• 5 black tea bags
• 2 whole star anise
• ½ tablespoon green cardamom lightly crushed
• 1.5 inch cinnamon stick
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 2 tablespoon brown sugar
• 3 teaspoon vanilla extract

Thai Tea Base (Very spicy)

• 5 black tea bags
• 2 whole star anise
• 1 tablespoon green cardamom lightly crushed
• 2.5 inch cinnamon stick
• 2 teaspoon turmeric
• 2 tablespoon brown sugar
• 3 teaspoon vanilla extract

How To Make Thai Tea Mix (Black Tea Bags and Thai Tea Spices)

The process of making Thai tea using black tea bags and Thai tea spices is almost the same as using a premade mix. There are only a few steps you need to do beforehand to prepare your mixture.

1. First, lightly crush the green cardamom pods using a pestle or mortar or the side of your knife. Add the tea bags, star anise, and crushed cardamom into a pot. Pour water over the spices and turn on the stove.
2. Then, add in turmeric, brown sugar and vanilla extract. Generally, you want to brew 1.25 cups per serving as we want to compensate for some water evaporating during brewing.
3. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer for 3 to 5 mins. Simmer for longer for a richer, stronger tea taste.
4. Pour the brewed tea into separate cups while filtering out the leaves and spices.
5. Stir in the evaporated milk, then the condensed milk and add a pinch of salt.

Thai tea leaves vs powder mix

While we recommend making it from scratch, sometimes we've gotten lazy and used a powder mix at home. Our recommended blend is the Qbubble Tea Powder Mix. 

Although powder mixes have some drawbacks, they also have many clear advantages. For one, they are incredibly convenient as you only need to add water. You can also improve the taste by adding spices and boba. It’s great when we’re strapped for time or cash but still want a quick fix.

On the other hand, there are some things we don’t like about using a powdered Thai tea mix. 

First, you can’t customise powder mixes according to your taste. For example, if you like your drink stronger or with fewer spices, you can’t make these changes to a powder mix. We originally started buying powder mixes before we realised they were either too sweet or the texture was watery for us.

In addition, some mixes might have preservatives and ingredients we want to avoid. Dairy and orange food dye are a few common examples.

Also, several Thai tea powders we tried don’t taste as great as freshly prepared ones. It lacks the textural brightness and unprocessed flavours from using your ingredients. 

While these mixes can be better in some situations, making it fresh is always better (for us, at least). So, buying a loose-leaf Thai tea mix is a better choice as it gives us more creative freedom and is cheaper in the long run.

Cooking Tips

Too Bitter?

If your drink turns out bitter, there are a few reasons. You may have over-steeped this and let the leaves boil for too long.

Go for the French Press Hot Brew method or brew over the stove for just 3 minutes. This is the perfect amount of brewing before it gets too rich and bitter. Brewing the tea leaves over 5 minutes tends to make it very bitter.

How to strain

You don’t need any fancy tools to strain the leaves out. An average fine mesh strainer will do, but you can also use a mesh cloth filter. We haven’t noticed any texture difference when we’ve used either method.

Alternatively, you can brew the Thai tea mix into a tea bag. It’s a mess-free method; you just need to fish out the bag from the pot at the end. However, this method takes longer for the flavours to come out. 

Cold brewing

You can make a cold brew of Thai iced tea for a smooth, sweet flavour. With this method, there’s no risk of getting a bitter taste from overboiling the tea leaves, saving a lot of work before a big party. However, the flavours weren’t as intense as when we tried the stove brew method.

It gave us a lacklustre tea that wasn’t aromatic or spicy. The colour of the tea base was also significantly lighter. We don't think it's suitable for Thai tea, which is meant to be made with a rich and deep-flavoured base. Therefore, we don’t recommend cold brewing Thai tea.

First, make the Thai base using the above methods if you want an iced Thai tea. Then, let it cool down, or pour it over ice if you're in a rush.

Cooling it faster

To avoid diluting your Thai iced tea with ice:

1. Brew the leaves the day before or at least 2 hours early.
2. Allow it to come to room temperature, then refrigerate it to cool it faster.
3. In a hurry, put the tea into a plastic bottle, wrap it with a wet paper towel, and put it in the freezer. This step will cool it even faster.

How To Enjoy

While Thai iced tea is famous as a cold drink in Thailand, it also tastes great as a hot drink. Like Teh Tarik, you can serve this hot or cold, making it versatile all year round. We love making a hot version during colder days as we reminisce about the warm weather in Thailand.

Just don't drink it too hot. Thai tea tastes better when it's cool or just warm. You get to enjoy the complete flavour profile and its texture better.

You can also add boba pearls, turning it into an iced Thai tea boba. It’s one of the top bubble tea flavours in many boba stores. Try our Thai boba recipe, where we tweaked this recipe slightly.

If you're feeling adventurous, you can also try this as a flavour for various dishes. For example, we've made Thai tea ice cream, cheesecake, and cookies.

Why is it orange?

You can quickly identify Thai iced tea by its bright orange colour. However, black tea isn't orange. So, what gives it this distinctive hue? Most modern recipes and premade mixes use yellow food colouring to get the orange for Thai iced tea. However, as we do in our recipe, you can use some ground turmeric to get a faint orange.

You can also use a premixed pack or add spices for the aesthetic orange. We've added a note in our recipe on how much to add without it being too overpowering. We've also listed the perfect amount in our recipe below if you prefer food colouring.

Supposedly, palace chefs used leftover tea leaves to brew tea for domestic staff so they could have their fill. Since reused leaves lack aroma and flavour, they added spices to the drink. These include herbs such as turmeric and tamarind. These spices naturally tend to turn drinks orange.

Some of our Thai friends have also told us another reason. They said that street vendors in Thailand added orange colouring to differentiate Cha yen from Thai iced coffee, which has a similar appearance. Regardless of the real reason, the orange colour isn't essential to the flavour of this popular Thai drink.

How should Thai Tea taste like?

Following our recipe, your Thai tea should taste creamy and sweet with vanilla notes. The mouthfeel is silky yet lingers on the tongue. It’s thicker than regular milk tea because condensed and evaporated milk is used. The dominant flavour is from the black tea leaves, but what makes it distinct is the spice-filled fragrance of the beverage. Its prominent aroma is vanilla-like but has subtle liquorice and citrus notes. This drink is great if you like sweet caffeine drinks, boba milk tea, or something lighter than milkshakes.

Calories

Our homemade Thai iced tea drink has around 152 calories. However, if you want to reduce the total calorie count, dilute it with more ice, reduce the amount of sugar, and use skim milk.

By replacing the condensed and evaporated milk, you can make this drink much less calorie-rich. When we did this, it didn't give us the same texture and taste as we wanted. So, we wouldn't recommend it.

In addition, if you add boba toppings, this calorie count increases up to 300 calories. You can find out more with our boba calorie research, which we did a few years ago.

We hope our milk tea recipe helped you learn more about this often-overlooked treat. Do share with us how yours turned out by leaving us a comment on our YouTube channel!

Next up, we recommend checking out our homemade Honeydew melon bubble tea recipe.