Yuenyeung Coffee and Tea 鸳鸯

Ingredients

A typical cup is about seven parts milk tea to three parts coffee, although the ratio is not fixed. The milk tea is usually brewed from Ceylon black tea and finished with evaporated milk. In the variant called yang zou (鸯走) the evaporated milk is replaced with condensed milk, which carries more sugar, so this version usually needs no extra sweetening. There is also a caffeine-free 'children's yuenyeung' (儿童鸳鸯) that mixes Ovaltine with Horlicks instead of tea and coffee.

Flavour and texture

Yuenyeung Coffee and Tea pairs the aroma of coffee with the smooth body of milk tea. The flavour is layered and strongly scented, bitter at first with a sweet finish, and the texture is silky. A freshly made cup usually comes without sugar so that drinkers can sweeten it to their own taste.

Where it comes from

Coffee and milk tea were not traditional drinks in Chinese communities; both reached Hong Kong with the British after the colony was founded in the mid-19th century. How the blend began is unknown. One story credits the coolies who loaded and unloaded cargo ships by hand at the docks, and who mixed bitter, stimulating coffee with tea to quench thirst and stay alert during breaks. Another places its birth at Hong Kong's dai pai dong (大牌档), the licensed open-air street food stalls.

The name is that of the mandarin duck: the male and female look very different yet live as a pair, just as two unlike drinks combine well in the cup. Yuenyeung is used as a symbol of Hong Kong's blend of Chinese and Western culture, and the skill of making it (鸳鸯制作技艺) was entered on the Hong Kong intangible cultural heritage inventory in 2014 as a traditional craft, item 5.37.

How it is eaten

Yuenyeung Coffee and Tea is a fixture of dai pai dong, cha chaan teng (茶餐厅) cafés, Hong Kong-style fast-food chains and Hong Kong-style Western restaurants. The Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po (文汇报) lists it with lemon 7 Up (檸七) and lemon Ribena (檸賓) among the signature cha chaan teng drinks, nearly all of them made by mixing.