Recipe
🥤 DRINK
Thai Iced Tea
Strong spiced black tea sweetened with condensed milk and poured over ice in bright orange layers.
Thai · easy · serves 4
prep 5 min · cook 10 min
~109 cal · 3g protein · 18g carbs · 3g fat · 0g fiber · 18g sugars · 2g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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AI-generated illustration
Thai iced tea (cha yen) is the vividly orange, sweet-and-creamy drink beloved across Thailand, strong black tea steeped with spices, heavily sweetened with sugar and condensed milk, then poured over ice and topped with a swirl of evaporated milk. Its striking color and rich sweetness make it instantly recognizable.
The tea is traditionally blended with spices and sometimes a touch of coloring, brewed strong to stand up to the ice and milk. It emerged from Thailand's Chinese-influenced tea culture and the introduction of condensed milk, becoming a street and restaurant staple.
It is sweet enough to count as dessert, and that vivid orange comes partly from food coloring, which is why nothing else on the table looks quite like it.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and gluten-, egg-, nut- 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 Thai tea mix (or strong black tea and star anise)
1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup evaporated milk
2 tbsp, to taste sugar
4 cups water
to serve ice
Instructions
1
Stir the tea into freshly boiled water, steep it 5 minutes until very strong and deeply coloured, then stir it again before straining through a cloth strainer or a sieve lined with cheesecloth.
✎ Chef’s note
Thai tea powder is ground fine and clumps in water, so stir it in and stir it again before you strain; vendors pour theirs back and forth through a cloth bag several times for the same reason. A regular mesh sieve will let the fine particles through. Use a proper Thai tea blend rather than a three-in-one instant mix, which already has creamer in it.
2
Stir in the sugar and a pinch of salt while the tea is hot, then cool it to room temperature.
3
Fill tall glasses with ice and pour the tea over.
4
Top with condensed milk (or coconut versions) and a float of evaporated milk.
5
Serve with a straw and stir before drinking.
✎ Chef’s note
The famous orange is mostly food colouring rather than tea, and nobody knows how it started. One theory has vendors around the turn of the twentieth century bulking out cheap leaves with safflower and tamarind to mimic the deep colour of expensive imported Ceylon; another has Siamese servants doctoring the leaves their English employers threw away after a single brew, to make a second and third pot look worth drinking; another has coffee houses reddening their tea so it could be told apart from coffee once the condensed milk went in.
Bangkok street tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Bangkok (Central). Boat noodles are named for where they were sold, from small craft working the canals, and the bowls are small because a vendor rocking on the water could not fill a large one without spilling it. The broth is dark and thick with pork or beef blood, and eating four or five bowls in a sitting is normal rather than greedy.
🗺️
Thailand. Several things the world files under Thai came from next door. Som tam and larb belong to the Lao side of the Mekong and to Isan in the northeast; chillies arrived with Portuguese traders in the sixteenth century, so nothing built on them is ancient; and pad thai was pushed as a national dish by the Phibun government in the mid twentieth century.
🌍
Asia. A grain line runs across the continent. Rice dominates the wet south and east, wheat the drier north and west, and the tools follow it: the wok and the steamer where rice is milled, the tandoor and the griddle where wheat is ground. Tea travels the other way, drunk green, black, salted, buttered or with milk depending how far it got from China.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
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Good to know
Storing it: Keep chilled and covered, and enjoy within 2 to 3 days.
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Drinks
Frequently asked questions
What is Thai Iced Tea?
Strong spiced black tea sweetened with condensed milk and poured over ice in bright orange layers.
Where does Thai Iced Tea come from?
Thai Iced Tea is a Thai dish from Bangkok (Central), Thailand.
Can Thai Iced Tea be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Thai Iced Tea 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 Thai Iced Tea 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 Thai Iced Tea take to make?
About 15 minutes total (5 minutes prep, 10 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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