What is Yuanyang Milk Tea? Is There Coffee in Hong Kong Style Yuanyang? How to Make an Authentic Yuanyang?

What is "Yuan Yang"?

Since FrontStreet Coffee shared the characteristics and origin of "Yuan Yang" in the article "Why Tea Plus Coffee is Called 'Yuan Yang'" at the end of last year, many friends have become curious about the taste of Yuan Yang and want to try this delicious beverage made from milk tea and coffee.

So besides going to a dedicated Hong Kong-style tea restaurant, friends with the right conditions can also choose to make it at home. First, making Yuan Yang is not difficult, and second, making it yourself allows you to control the ingredients freely, so the resulting Yuan Yang can better suit your preferences. Therefore, today FrontStreet Coffee will share with you how to simply make a classic Hong Kong-style Yuan Yang at home!

What is "Yuan Yang"? Since FrontStreet Coffee has already introduced the origin of Yuan Yang in detail in previous articles, here's a brief introduction. Interested friends can click on the blue text link shared by FrontStreet Coffee above for detailed information. In the broad sense, "Yuan Yang" refers to a waterfowl native to East Asia, where "Yuan" refers to the male bird and "Yang" refers to the female bird. Since they often appear in pairs, the term Yuan Yang is often used as a symbol of "love" and "companionship". In the eyes of people from the South China F3 region and Hong Kong/Macau, "Yuan Yang" has the meaning of "two" or "pair", so Yuan Yang is also used in these regions to describe food made by combining two different flavors. Like the "Hong Kong-style Yuan Yang" we often hear, it refers to a beverage made by combining Hong Kong-style coffee and silk stocking milk tea.

Because it contains both milk tea and coffee, this beverage is also often called "Yuan Yang Milk Tea" or "Yuan Yang Coffee". In addition, there is also a "Children's Yuan Yang" that uses Ovaltine instead of coffee, specially for children who cannot drink coffee, allowing them to also taste the deliciousness of Yuan Yang.

What are the Special Considerations in Making "Yuan Yang"?

I believe everyone can learn from FrontStreet Coffee's introduction above that Yuan Yang is mainly composed of coffee and milk tea. Although it seems very simple, just adding milk and tea to coffee and you're done. But in reality, it is indeed so...

...(this old joke never gets old) But in reality, doing so will most likely bring you a cup of Yuan Yang that tastes as bland as water. The making of Yuan Yang has special considerations. "Three parts coffee, seven parts tea, appropriate amount of milk - when drinking, it's neither milk tea nor coffee, neither flavor is present, that's a good Yuan Yang." This is the production ratio and characteristics that a "good Yuan Yang" should have, according to Wong Ka-wa, known as the "Father of Milk Tea". So if we want to make a delicious Yuan Yang, then first we need to make the two basic beverages that combine to form it - coffee and milk tea! Their concentration, their ratio, are all details we need to control. Because only with sufficient concentration and appropriate ratio can we make a fragrant and delicious Yuan Yang.

The production methods of these two beverages are largely similar. First, choose suitable "base ingredients" (coffee powder and tea leaves), then through the method of "one brew, two steep, three strain, four reheat" (classic Hong Kong-style method), you can make a rich but not astringent "soup base" (coffee and tea).

The so-called "one brew, two steep, three strain, four reheat" refers to first putting tea leaves into a filter bag that looks like a silk stocking, then pouring in boiling water ("water滚茶靓" - this is a popular saying in Hong Kong). When the tea flavor is steeped out, the "tea pulling" step begins. That is, holding the filter bag containing tea leaves over an empty pot, then pouring the previously made tea soup into the filter bag from a height, and pouring back and forth several times, which removes the astringency of the tea and makes the texture smoother. Finally, just place the "strained" tea on a stove over low heat to keep warm, which can make the tea color brighter. The method for Hong Kong-style coffee is the same, but when brewing coffee, this step is called "coffee straining".

But obviously, if we follow the Hong Kong-style method for production, the entire process will be very complicated, so the steps FrontStreet Coffee shares later will be slightly simplified. In terms of material selection, early Yuan Yang tea soup would prefer to use fragrant and rich black tea for production, but just like coffee, when people discovered that using different tea blends would create more distinctive flavors, they began to use "blended tea" as the soup base. Every tea restaurant has its own secret formula, not just tea, and the selection of coffee beans is also the same. So from here we can know that Hong Kong-style Yuan Yang is not all the same, and every tea restaurant has its own characteristics. And the "milk" in the aforementioned "three parts coffee, seven parts tea, appropriate amount of milk" does not refer to regular fresh milk, but concentrated evaporated milk. Similarly, the milk used in Hong Kong-style milk tea and Yuan Yang also needs to have a certain concentration. Only in this way can the finished product have a sufficiently rich flavor and a sufficiently mellow and silky texture.

Alright, that's all for the special considerations in making Yuan Yang. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will share how to make a fragrant and delicious Yuan Yang!

How to Make a Delicious "Yuan Yang"?

In order to replicate the flavor of early Hong Kong-style Yuan Yang as much as possible, the materials used here by FrontStreet Coffee are: Ceylon black tea, Black and White evaporated milk, and for coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee chose FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesia Golden Mandheling from the FrontStreet Coffee bean list. And as FrontStreet Coffee mentioned earlier, the Hong Kong-style brewing steps are too cumbersome, so we will appropriately simplify the brewing process. The tea soup is made directly using the boiling method, but the ratio will be slightly larger, at 1:18, meaning 10g of tea leaves should use 180ml of water, then simmer over low heat for 20 minutes. The boiled tea soup looks something like this, the type that you can tell is very concentrated just by looking.

For the coffee aspect, we have many options for preparation methods, such as pour-over, moka pot, or espresso. Here FrontStreet Coffee chose a relatively simple preparation method - pour-over coffee. But note that the concentration of coffee also needs to be relatively high, so our coffee-to-water ratio should also be relatively larger! The extraction parameters used by FrontStreet Coffee are as follows: 15g coffee grounds, coffee-to-water ratio 1:10, ground to the size of fine sugar, 75% passing rate through a #20 sieve (ice brew grinding for dark roast coffee), water temperature 90°C, brewing method is three-stage, extraction time is two minutes. The brewing process remains: first use twice the amount of water for the coffee grounds (30ml) to bloom for 30 seconds. After blooming, use a small water stream to slowly inject the second stage of hot water (60ml) in a circular motion; when the water level drops to expose the coffee bed, we use the same water stream and the same method to inject the remaining 60ml of hot water. When all the coffee in the filter cup has filtered through, we can remove the filter cup and end the extraction.

Afterward, we can start assembling the prepared base materials! But actually, you don't need to completely follow the "three parts coffee, seven parts tea, appropriate amount of milk" suggestion for production, because everyone uses different teas, coffees, and production concentrations are different, so the amount we pour needs to be adjusted according to taste. As long as it doesn't taste like milk tea or coffee when drinking, then it's probably an authentic-tasting Yuan Yang.

After multiple adjustments, FrontStreet Coffee's final parameters are as follows: 140ml black tea, 70ml coffee, 60ml evaporated milk. Pour them sequentially into a prepared cup and stir well, and a relatively classic Yuan Yang is completed!

Really, this cup of Yuan Yang is very comfortable to drink! With one sip, you can simultaneously feel the aroma released by both coffee and black tea, but the taste is a combination of milk, tea, and coffee - balanced yet not conflicting, very unique. Since all three base components have sufficient concentration, the texture goes without saying - mellow and silky, superb!!! If there could be a pineapple bun with it at this time, it would be even better! But it should be noted that this version made by FrontStreet Coffee does not add any sugar, making it more suitable for friends who are used to drinking black coffee. For friends who cannot handle bitterness, FrontStreet Coffee suggests adding a small amount of condensed milk, which can not only balance the bitterness but also further enhance the texture of the Yuan Yang.

In addition to the classic version of Yuan Yang, nowadays most coffee shops also offer a product called "Yuan Yang Latte", which is made by adding a concentrated black tea to latte coffee. That is, using a coffee machine to extract a very concentrated black tea (some tea concentrates are made from black tea powder), then making it according to the latte production method, which is also very simple. And regardless of which version of Yuan Yang, it will contain very high caffeine content. So! Friends who don't want their eyes wide open like copper bells in the middle of the night need to pay attention - try not to drink Yuan Yang too late, otherwise...

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FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)
No. 10, Bao'an Qianjie, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

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