Engineering the Ultimate Boba Milk Tea, Part 5: Milk

This series is a deep dive into the details and thought process behind our boba milk tea at Camellia Rd Tea Bar.

Here in Part 5, we're going to talk about milk. Expect to learn about the chemistry of milk and about the milk options we offer at Camellia Rd Tea Bar.

Parks and Recreation - S5E17 "Partridge"

In cooking, fats can be used to extract flavors from ingredients to add to a dish. A great example of this is in ramen; an aromatic oil (koumi abura) is made by infusing oil with strong aromatic ingredients like onion, garlic, or chilis. Koumi abura is used to finish a bowl of ramen for an extra kick of aromatic flavor. For ramen, having a lot of fat helps to achieve rich and deep savory flavor.

At Camellia Rd Tea Bar, we'll do specials like our black sesame milk tea or a condensed milk cold foam; both are specials that utilize fats to transport flavors in the black sesame or condensed milk respectively.

But for our ultimate boba milk tea, we use milk more subtly; milk serves to balance and complement the tea flavor, not to overpower it.* Let's look at some of our options.

Chemistry of Milk Creamers

The fat content of milk is our primary consideration for our boba milk tea. In the U.S., dairy terms are regulated based on milk fat %. [1][2]

Item	% Fat
2% or reduce fat milk	2%
Whole milk	3.25%
Half and half	10.5% to 18%
Heavy cream	>36%

Let's compare this to a few milk alternatives:

Item	Total Fat per serving	% Fat*
Califia cafe oat milk	7g per 240mL	2.9%
Coffee mate liquid creamer	1g per 15mL	6.7%
Coffee mate powder creamer	0.5g per 2g	25%

*Estimated % Fat, calculated as total fat (g) / serving amount (mL or g), assuming that liquid density is approximately 1g per mL. Actual serving size will vary greatly depending on the type of drink.

Milk Options at Camellia Rd Tea Bar

At Camellia Rd Tea Bar, we found that whole milk adds a subtle sweetness and richness that rounds out some of the sharpness or harshness in strong teas. The 3.25% milk fat in whole milk gave our drinks a touch of creaminess, and used in a ratio of ~3 parts tea to 1 part milk created a perfect balance.

For some of our darker teas, such as our Camellia Blend black tea, the richness and smokiness called for a bit more creaminess to be balanced so we actually use a rich half & half for these darker teas.

Considerations of Milk Creamers

While we think that dairy milk is great, we saw many people with common dietary restrictions around milk including lactose-intolerance and vegan diets. Because milk serves to complement and balance our tea flavors, we felt that it was appropriate to offer alternative options to suit customer's preferences. We now offer 2 alternative milk choices a 2% milk fat, lactose-free combo dairy milk and a oat milk as a plant based alternative to give some flexibility towards personal preferences.

Nondairy creamers, such as Coffee Mate, give a ton of richness and texture to milk tea, and is still the standard base creamer for a lot of boba tea chains. It serves as a great nondairy option and like high fructose corn syrup sweetener, non-dairy creamer powder is mass produced, cheap, and shelf-stable.

But as Darwin explains in this post; "It’s a love or hate thing. Non-dairy creamer coats your mouth with a particular aftertaste. Some people love it, others despise it." For us, we found that its fatty creaminess was long-lasting and intense, masking a lot of the more subtle and refined flavors from our teas.

And it's also worth noting that many non dairy creamer powders are produced with hydrogenated vegetable oils that were linked with negative health effects. Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils specifically have been recognized as not GRAS "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) by the FDA. These days, a lot of creamer powder recipes have been adjusted to omit partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, but they can still contain higher amounts of trans fat and lead to worse health outcomes overall. [3][4][5]

Conclusion

At Camellia Rd Tea Bar, we use real dairy milk for our ultimate milk tea and decided against nondairy creamers. Milk should add a small amount of fat, sweetness, and richness to the drink. For most teas, we use good old fashioned whole milk, and for a few of our darker or spiced teas we'll use half & half. We added 2 milk alternatives to make our menu inclusive; lactose-free 2% milk and Califia cafe oat milk. As we'll discuss in our next post, the main flavor for our ultimate boba milk tea is the tea itself and a good milk serves to enhance the tea flavor, not over power it.

-Ricky

*As I was drafting this post, I got side-tracked and began writing about all the parallels between the ultimate boba milk tea and the ultimate bowl of ramen noodle soup. Both are products where "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts", but fat is used very differently in ramen, as it's very high in fat (and therefore flavor).

---

[1] https://www.usdairy.com/news-articles/the-types-of-cream-and-their-uses#:~:text=Half%20and%20half:%2010.5%25%20to,the%20same%20texture%20or%20flavor.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_content_of_milk

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19345947/#:~:text=They%20cause%20inflammation%20and%20calcification,the%20regulation%20of%20blood%20flow.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_hydrogenation#:~:text=Hydrogenating%20vegetable%20oil%20is%20done,carbons%20can%20no%20longer%20exist.

[5] https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/final-determination-regarding-partially-hydrogenated-oils-removing-trans-fat#:~:text=In%202015%2C%20FDA%20released%20its,foods%20to%20January%201%2C%202020.