Hong Kong-Style Milk Tea: How "Silk Stocking" Tea Is Made

Strong black tea, evaporated milk and a cloth strainer stained the colour of stockings: how Hong Kong's favourite drink is made.

Facts checked 22 October 2026 against the sources listed below

What is Hong Kong milk tea?

Hong Kong-style milk tea (港式奶茶) is strong black tea mixed with evaporated or condensed milk, and usually sugar. In Cantonese it is simply naai cha (奶茶), "milk tea", which sets it apart from plain tea. The usual leaf is Ceylon tea. You will find it at breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea in almost every cha chaan teng, Hong Kong's everyday café.

Its best-known nickname is "silk stocking" milk tea (絲襪奶茶). The name comes from the cloth strainer used to brew it. After long use the cloth is stained brown, and people said it looked like a pair of silk stockings.

Where it came from

Milk tea grew out of British afternoon tea in the mid-20th century, when Hong Kong was under British rule. At the time, afternoon tea with milk was mostly served in hotels and expensive Western restaurants.

Local eateries, such as bing sutt ("ice rooms") and dai pai dong (open-air food stalls), made the drink their own. They swapped fresh milk for evaporated milk, which was cheaper, easier to store and richer. In the 1940s a much stronger blend was sold to manual workers. From the 1960s, cha chaan teng spread the drink across the city, and office workers took to it too.

The Intangible Cultural Heritage Office describes the drink as the result of a "century-old evolution" from English milk tea. It says the craft shows Hong Kong's East-meets-West food culture and how local people live and eat. From the 1990s, in the years around the 1997 handover, milk tea also became a symbol of Hong Kong identity. Industry estimates put the city's habit at about 2.5 million cups a day.

The silk stocking strainer

The strainer is a sackcloth bag. It holds the tea leaves while hot water and tea are poured through it again and again. The cloth catches the fine leaves, so the tea comes out smooth.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board says you can watch this at Lan Fong Yuen on Gage Street in Central, a small eatery that began as a dai pai dong. Staff strain the tea through a sackcloth bag "that resembles a pair of silk stockings", then add condensed milk and serve it hot or over ice. Lan Fong Yuen says its owner, Lum Muk-ho, invented the silk stocking method in 1952, a claim that is generally accepted.

How a milk tea master makes it

Every milk tea master has a personal recipe, so milk tea tastes a little different from café to café. Hong Kong Memory, which records the city's heritage items, says a good cup needs three things: aroma, richness and smoothness.

What you need: black tea leaves of different picks and brands, boiling water, and evaporated milk or filled milk. The tools are two light kettles, one sackcloth tea strainer and an electric hot plate.

The steps, as Hong Kong Memory describes them:

1. Mix the leaves. Large, medium and small tea leaves are mixed well and put into the strainer. Larger leaves give a darker, smoother tea. Smaller leaves give a lighter tea with more taste.
2. Boil the water in one kettle, then pour it through the strainer, which sits on the second kettle.
3. Boil and infuse. The tea boils for several minutes with the lid on. Timing matters: too short and the taste is weak, too long and it turns bitter.
4. Force-pour the tea. The master holds up the strainer and pours the hot tea into it from high up, at least three times. This adds air for a smoother texture and blends the flavours of the different leaves.
5. Infuse again. The tea goes back on the hot plate for one to two minutes, then simmers to draw out more colour and flavour.
6. Add the milk. The tea is poured into the milk, or the milk into the tea, depending on the master's habit.

The heritage office sums up the same craft in five steps: blending the leaves, boiling and infusing, force-pouring the tea, brewing, and force-pouring the milk.

Hot, iced and yuenyeung

Hong Kong's heritage inventory describes milk tea as a hot drink, but you can also have it iced, as Lan Fong Yuen serves it. A few ways to order:

• Hot milk tea: the classic, made with evaporated milk.
• Iced milk tea: the same tea served over ice. The ice thins the drink as it melts.
• Caa zau: milk tea made with condensed milk instead of evaporated milk.
• Yuenyeung (鴛鴦): milk tea mixed with coffee. The heritage inventory lists it as its own item: tea, coffee and evaporated milk, made with the same pouring through the cloth strainer.

Want to know what to eat with it, and how to order? Read our guide to cha chaan teng.

Milk tea and Hong Kong heritage

"Hong Kong-style Milk Tea Making Technique" is on Hong Kong's Representative List of intangible cultural heritage, a shorter list picked out from the full inventory. It was listed in 2017, under the "traditional craftsmanship" domain.

It is on the full inventory too. In the 2024 inventory it is item 5.36, described as a hot drink made by pouring water again and again into a cloth strainer of tea leaves, then pouring the hot tea into a cup of evaporated milk. Yuenyeung follows as item 5.37. Dim sum making is on the same inventory; read about it in our dim sum guide.

Where to try it

We do not rank cafés. Most cha chaan teng serve milk tea, and the Hong Kong Tourism Board's own list of must-visit cha chaan tengs is a good place to start. Opening hours change, so check before you go.

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