Mongolian milk tea (suutei tsai)

How it works

Water and tea go on the heat together and are boiled rather than steeped, because the leaf is usually compressed and coarse. Milk and salt join the pot and the whole is kept just under a rolling boil. The characteristic step is the ladling: liquid is lifted high and poured back in, over and over. This aerates the tea, mixes the milk fully through it, and evens the temperature so the milk does not catch on the base of a hot pan. Regional and household additions are common — toasted millet, a little fat or butter — and vary enough that no single formulation should be presented as the standard one.

Why choose it

It is the preparation the coarse compressed teas of the northern trade were made for, and the boiling-with-milk approach extracts them in a way steeping does not. The pouring step is also the simplest demonstration anywhere in tea of what aeration does to a hot liquid.

Equipment

• Brewing saucepan — Stainless steel or heavy-based aluminium; enamelled steel in many households
• Tea strainer — Stainless steel mesh; sometimes with a ceramic or wooden holder

Tea types it suits

Recorded on the method rather than inferred from the catalogue. A type missing here is not ruled out; it simply has not been written down.

• Dark tea and pu-erh
• Green tea

Common problems

• Adding milk at the very start, which slows the extraction of a leaf that needs hard boiling
• Skipping the ladling, which leaves the drink unmixed and the milk liable to catch on the pan
• Using a fine or delicate leaf, which turns bitter long before the milk is properly incorporated
• Sweetening it, which is a different drink rather than an improvement on this one

Teas with parameters authored for this method

1 tea has a parameter set written for mongolian milk tea (suutei tsai), in alphabetical order. Each row is transcribed from that tea’s own record.

Other boiled and decocted methods

Same family, so the approach is close — the vessel, the ratio and the intent still differ.

• Boiling aged and dark tea (zhu cha) — Compressed or aged dark tea put into a kettle of water and brought to a simmer rather than steeped. It is a normal winter preparation for Liu Bao, aged shou pu-erh, brick tea and tea nuggets, and it is also what a gongfu session’s exhausted leaf is for.
• Boiling and decoction — Leaf, and usually other ingredients, simmered in water or milk rather than steeped — the basis of masala chai, butter tea and noon chai.
• Butter tea churning — Brick tea boiled at length, then churned with butter and salt into an emulsion. It is a daily staple across the Tibetan plateau and neighbouring highlands, and calling it a savoury drink undersells what it is: the churning changes its physical state, not just its seasoning.
• Chai preparation — Tea simmered with milk, sugar and whole spices rather than steeped — a decoction, and the daily preparation of a very large part of the world. There is no single authoritative recipe, and regional and household variation is enormous.
• Hong Kong milk tea (sock-strained) — A blend of black teas brewed very strong and passed repeatedly through a long cloth filter between two pots, then finished with evaporated milk. The filter stains to a deep tan with use, which is where the popular name comes from — there is no stocking involved.
• Moroccan mint tea preparation — Chinese gunpowder green tea brewed strong with a large quantity of fresh spearmint and sugar, and poured from height into small glasses. It is the daily preparation and the hospitality ritual across the Maghreb, and the pour is functional as well as expressive.
• Noon chai (Kashmiri pink tea) — Green tea boiled long with a pinch of bicarbonate of soda, shocked with cold water, aerated, then finished with milk and salt. The pink colour is the visible consequence of the chemistry rather than an added ingredient, and the preparation belongs to Kashmiri households on both sides of the Line of Control.

Sources