Recipe
🥤 DRINK
Burmese Milk Tea (Lahpet Yay No Hsat)
Strong black tea sweetened with condensed and evaporated milk and pulled to a froth, the caffeinated pulse of Myanmar's teahouses.
Burmese · easy · serves 4
prep 5 min · cook 10 min
~112 cal · 4g protein · 16g carbs · 4g fat · 0g fiber · 16g sugars · 2g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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In Myanmar the teahouse is a kind of shared living room, and Burmese milk tea is its beating heart. Its proper name is lahpet yay no hsat, and in a tea shop you can simply ask for lahpet yay, since context does the rest; no hsan lahpet yay names it more precisely still, after the condensed milk that defines it. Across the country people gather at low tables from early morning to sit for hours over a cup, talking, reading the paper, doing business, and watching the street go by.
The tea itself is rich and strong: dark black tea brewed hard, then sweetened and enriched with both condensed and evaporated milk and often pulled between vessels to build a little froth. Crucially, it is ordered by strength and sweetness through a vocabulary all its own, so everyone gets their exact cup.
It is almost always accompanied by little snacks, fried fritters, steamed buns, or a plate of the famous tea-leaf salad, lahpet thoke. Sweet, strong, and endlessly sociable, Burmese milk tea is less a drink than the setting for daily life.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and gluten-, nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
4 tbsp strong black tea
3 cups water
1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup evaporated milk
Instructions
1
Steep the black tea in the just-boiled water for 5 minutes until very strong, then strain.
2
Stir the condensed milk into the hot tea until fully dissolved.
3
Add the evaporated milk and adjust to the strength and sweetness you like.
✎ Chef’s note
This is the part that has a whole vocabulary attached. The everyday order is cho sein, sweet and rich, which sets the balance of milk and sugar. Beyond that you can ask for kyet kyat hsat kya, strong and sweet, or cho kye, sweet and weak. What you must not ask for is lahpet yay gyan: that means plain unsweetened tea, usually green, and is the free pot that comes to the table anyway rather than the drink you are making here.
4
Pull the tea between two jugs a few times to froth it, then pour and serve hot.
Burmese teahouse tradition, Yangon.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Yangon. Mohinga is not one soup. The Yangon version builds its broth on catfish with chickpeas and peanuts, and the body comes from toasted rice flour or gram flour rather than anything creamy. There are a dozen regional versions using different thickeners and different fish.
🗺️
Myanmar. Lahpet is one of very few things in the world where tea is eaten rather than drunk. The leaves are steamed and packed to ferment, then tossed with fried garlic, split peas, peanuts, sesame, dried shrimp, tomato and green chilli into a salad that is simultaneously bitter, sour, salty and crunchy, and it is offered to guests and at ceremonies.
🌍
Asia. Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, and its food spans the delicate seasonality of Japanese washoku, the chili-fired curries of India and Thailand, and the wheat-and-lamb traditions of Central Asia. Rice, noodles, soy, and fermentation recur across its regions, while ancient spice routes and religious traditions shaped distinct grammars of flavor. Whether from a street-cart wok or a monastery kitchen, eating is deeply communal and ritual-rich.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Myanmar
MohingaMyanmar’s national breakfast: rice noodles in a lemongrass-catfish broth thickened with toasted chickpea flour.
Burmese Chicken CurryChicken slow-cooked in an oil-rich onion, garlic, ginger, and turmeric masala until deeply savory.
Lahpet ThokeA tea-leaf salad of fermented tea, crunchy fried beans, nuts, and seeds tossed with cabbage and lime, Myanmar's national treasure.
Browse all Myanmar recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Keep chilled and covered, and enjoy within 2 to 3 days.
Make it a Myanmar meal
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Drinks
Frequently asked questions
What is Burmese Milk Tea (Lahpet Yay No Hsat)?
Strong black tea sweetened with condensed and evaporated milk and pulled to a froth, the caffeinated pulse of Myanmar's teahouses.
Where does Burmese Milk Tea (Lahpet Yay No Hsat) come from?
Burmese Milk Tea (Lahpet Yay No Hsat) is a Burmese dish from Yangon, Myanmar.
Can Burmese Milk Tea (Lahpet Yay No Hsat) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Burmese Milk Tea (Lahpet Yay No Hsat) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Burmese Milk Tea (Lahpet Yay No Hsat) safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Burmese Milk Tea (Lahpet Yay No Hsat) take to make?
About 15 minutes total (5 minutes prep, 10 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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