Drink the Best of Both Worlds with Yuanyang: A Coffee Tea Recipe

There is always that eternal battle- coffee vs. tea. Over which has better health benefits, which has more caffeine, or even how you drink it- well now you can drink the best of both worlds with Yuanyang (Yuenyeung, Yinyeung and Yinyong), a coffee and tea mixture popular in Hong Kong. Compare to all our other exciting tea recipes this one is probably the most easy to make.

The mixture is named after a mixture of light milk tea, black tea cut with a lot of milk, and iced black coffee. It is about two thirds milk tea and one third coffee, but the coffee definitely enough to give the drink that extra oomph. Mixing the mild and creamy milk tea, with the bitter coffee makes one amazing, if not a little sacrilegious, beverage.

Here is a recipe to make the stuff via food.com

Ingredients for Yuanyang:

• 3 cups water
• 1/4 cup black tea leaves (or six black tea bags, strings removed)
• 1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk (or use sweetened condensed milk)
  sugar
• 3 cups strong coffee

Directions:

• Bring water to a boil. Add tea leaves/bags and simmer three minutes.
• Stir in milk. Simmer 3 more minute.
• Stir in coffee. Stir in sugar to taste. Strain.
• Serve hot or cooled in an ice bucket.

Note: in Hong Kong milk tea is often served in an ice bucket. In this way, the ice cubes won’t delude the flavour of the beverage.

Have It Your Way!

Besides the above instructions you can go creative and add topping such as cream and Oreo cookies. Simply have it your way!

What’s also popular is to add some tapioca balls to turn it into a Hong Kong style pearl tea (or boba tea). It’s a great experience to drink and eat these balls at the same time. They’re hard to make yourself though, so you’ll have to find a Chinese supermarket near you.