“Wong Wan-Lee got out a folding table and served Pearl Chang a cup of tea. ‘Thanks!’ said Pearl Chang. Holding the cup she waited for something more. There was nothing more. ‘Is this hot enough?’ asked Wong Wan-Lee. ‘Yes, but where is the sugar and milk?’ asked Pearl Chang. ‘We are drinking tea, not milk-sugar-water,’ Wong Wan-Lee answered. ‘Savages have a dull sense of taste and therefore they have to use sugar and milk, but we are Chinese!” (65)
Traditional Chinese tea is consumed as is, that is, without anything added to it, in order to fully taste the flavor of the tea leaves. The addition of milk is a conventionally British thing to do, and a large majority of British people have their daily tea with milk. But why?
Adding milk to tea actually began centuries before the British did it–in Mongolia. According to a legend from the Tang Dynasty, Princess Wencheng, the niece of then-Emperor Taizong, would drink a cup of yak milk every morning. However, the taste of yak milk is quite strong, and she would have to cleanse her taste buds with a cup of tea made from tea leaves brought back from Tang (China). Eventually, she mixed the two and the well-known Tibetan yak butter tea was born.
Two summers ago, I went to China and was able to visit the Tibetan Hotel in Chengdu. There, I learned about the history of Tibetan tea and even got to take a tea brick home with me. Kang tea bricks have been produced in Sichuan for centuries and are made of dried black tea leaves compressed in a brick shape. These tea bricks were carried over the Tea Horse Road for trade up to Tibet from the 6th-20th centuries. Chinese traders exchanged tea for horses, thus the name for the historical trade route. Kang tea bricks are typically used in Tibet for Tibetan yak milk and yak butter tea. I actually got the chance to try some yak butter tea at a Tibetan café and tea house in Chengdu, shown in the image below. We had it with a puffed rice snack, which is popular as an accompaniment for tea in China (and other Asian countries). I remember the tea to be quite salty, which was unexpected and definitely quite unusual. It tasted a bit like cheese (I do not like cheese). The intent behind the addition of the yak milk/butter in historical times was to increase the caloric value of the drink to better suit nomadic lifestyles.
The addition of milk in Britain most likely began during the 17th century when tea was first introduced in the country from China. Two hypotheses for the addition of milk are that adding milk prevented the porcelain cups from cracking (hot tea would crack the porcelain, so adding cold milk would decrease the temperature) or to mask the poor flavor of low quality tea (along with sugar).
So perhaps Wong Wan-Lee is right, and that “Savages have a dull sense of taste and therefore they have to use sugar and milk” and that “we […] Chinese” have a stronger sense of taste to enjoy the full tea flavor, and even Tibetan yak butter tea!
“1992 Tibetan Kang Brick Tea.” Yunnan Sourcing, YouTube, 30 Apr. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ0rH-nl3OU.
Shacket, Sara. “Tea History: Adding Milk To Tea.” Tea Happiness, 7 Feb. 2019, www.tea-happiness.com/2019/02/tea-history-adding-milk-to-tea.html.
“Tibetan Butter Tea, Princess Wencheng, and the Ancient Tea Horse Road.” East Meets West, eastmeetswestea.wordpress.com/2018/01/09/tibetan-butter-tea-princess-wencheng-and-the-ancient-tea-horse-road/.
“Who Adds Milk to Tea and Why.” Tin Roof Teas, 9 Aug. 2017, www.tinroofteas.com/tea-blog/history-adding-milk-tea.