Can You Steep Tea in Milk? (What to Expect) (2024)

If you love a good cup of tea, you may be looking for an easy way to dress it up. Of course, you can just add honey and milk for added taste before you drink it, but did you know that you can steep your tea in milk?

Unlike steeping your tea in water, steeping your tea in milk will combine the flavor of your favorite tea with the creamy flavor of milk to make an incredible-tasting drink to enjoy any time during the day.

Brewing Tea

Some people think that brewing tea is easy. You just boil up some water, add in a tea bag, and you’ll have a perfect-tasting cup of tea. It is, in fact, a little more tricky.

According to an Oh How Civilized article, you should always use filtered water when making tea as unfiltered can leave your tea with an unusual aftertaste.

Next, you should pay close attention to the temperature of the water you are using. Different brands of tea, as well as different types of tea, will require different brewing temperatures in order to achieve the desired taste.

This is because some teas, such as green tea, can be very sensitive to hotter temperatures. In this article, it is also recommended to use loose-leaf tea, not tea bags, because tea bags often come with broken-down tea particles known as tea dust.

Steeping Tea

Of course, to make sure that your cup of tea comes out tasting perfect, you’ll want to use a warmed teapot for the steeping process.

Steeping your tea correctly for the appropriate amount of time is a very important step in the tea-making process. It doesn’t matter if you prefer hot or cold tea; adding in the milk of your choice at the wrong time can leave you with a bitter and unenjoyable cup of tea.

For example, if you add in the milk while you are brewing your tea, you may scald it, which will leave an unpleasant smell and sometimes taste. That said, no matter how you enjoy your tea, it is important to add in the milk during the steeping process, not the brewing process.

If you tend to prefer coffee and are just getting into drinking tea, you may not know very much about steeping. Steeping is a very important part of making tea. This is when the flavor from the leaves is extracted by sitting in water.

The hotter the water temperature, the faster the flavor will be extracted and you will most likely have a darker and heavier-tasting tea. If you use cold or refrigerated water, it will take much longer to extract the flavor from the tea leaves and will create a much lighter tasting and colored tea.

The length of time you spend steeping your tea will also affect the strength of flavor your tea has when it is finished. For example, steeping tea in boiling water only takes between one and five minutes, while steeping tea in room temperature or cold water can take anywhere from eight to fourteen hours, according to The Tea Cup of Life.

Because of this, over-steeping your tea can be a common mistake when making it with boiling water. A common misconception with tea is that if you steep it longer, it will have a stronger taste. Over-steeping can turn your tea a darker color but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee a stronger taste.

In fact, it can actually cause your tea to become bitter tasting. That is why it’s recommended to add in an extra tea bag or more tea leaves for stronger flavor instead.

Hot and Cold Brew Tea

There are two main ways that people enjoy their tea: hot or iced. Both can be steeped in milk. According to WikiHow, you can make a number of different milk teas ranging from standard black tea to chai.

It is generally easier to steep hot tea in milk, although there are several recipes online for many different delicious iced teas, but no matter how you make your tea, it is important to make sure that you add the milk slowly while your tea steeps and stir frequently.

Cold brew tea takes much longer to steep and therefore will have a lighter taste. According to The Tea Cup of Life, cold-brew tea should be refrigerated during the steeping process.

Because of this, adding milk to cold brew tea may not be a good idea because the milk may not mix in well and could settle at the bottom.

Instead, WikiHow suggests making iced tea by brewing hot tea, adding milk, and pouring it over a cup of ice. It is also suggested to use sweetened condensed milk instead of regular milk for added taste.

How to Make Milk Tea

It is important to start any cup of tea with water. If you want to steep your tea in milk, you should start with boiling water, not room temperature or cold.

Next, add in as much tea as you would like. Remember that more tea makes more flavor, not steeping time.

Next, steep your tea. You should steep your tea based on the type you chose. Some teas require very little steeping and become bitter when oversteeped, while herbal teas may respond well to being steeped longer.

Add in the milk of your choice. According to WikiHow, you shouldn’t add all your milk at once because it can make your tea watery.

Instead, you should add a little at a time and stir. It is also important not to let the milk get above 60 degrees Fahrenheit because it will scald, leaving behind an unfriendly odor and taste.

If adding the milk doesn’t make the tea sweet enough, you can add in sugar or honey to achieve the desired sweetness. If you are making iced tea, now is when you would add it to a cup filled three-quarters full of ice to cool it down.

Sweetened condensed milk can be very sugary so if you are using it in place of regular milk, you may not want to add in any additional sweeteners.

Health Benefits of Milk Tea

It is well known that tea as well as milk can have many different health benefits.

According to a Healthline article, drinking milk can help enhance your health in many different ways. For example, drinking milk every day can help you maintain a healthy weight and prevent osteoporosis and bone fractures.

Having a daily cup of tea can be very beneficial because it contains antioxidants and has less caffeine than coffee, which can lower your risk of heart disease and heart attacks, according to a Today article.

It is also suggested that drinking tea can help you lose weight, boost your immune system, and prevent some cancers.

Therefore, it can be concluded that steeping tea in milk will combine the health benefits of milk and tea to create a super drink that is delicious and full of nutrients.