You don't need to wait for the gingerbread season to enjoy festive flavours. This Oolong Gingerbread Latte recipe will fast forward you straight into the holiday season.
How to make a Gingerbread Latte?
Lattes are all about steamed and frothed milk. You can make them with coffee and tea, or different spices and latte powders. Whichever base you choose, a good latte should always have a layer of frothed milk. That's exactly what makes it different from other milk-based drinks. While black tea is a common base for making tea lattes, oolong tea can be just as great.
Which oolong tea should I use?
Oolong tea is the most colourful type of tea. It can be lightly oxidized and closer to green tea, or heavily oxidized and closer to black tea. Some oolong teas have a strong roasted flavour, some have intense honey notes, and some are aged and may have a very complex flavour profile. The best oolong tea for making a Gingerbread latte will have stronger, roasted or honey flavour. Oolong teas with dark, smaller twisted leaves or dark rolled oolongs may all be great for making lattes. Try it with heavily oxidized darker, roasted oolongs, that infuse into a stronger, deeper tea.
What is the best way to brew oolong tea?
Oolong tea is often described as full-bodied, but it's lighter of regular black teas that are often used for making lattes. There will usually be more lightness in a cup of oolong tea than in a cup of black tea. The flavour is often more complex, with hints of ripe fruits and honey. To get the best flavour, you can boil the tea leaves in a saucepan, rather than steeping them. To make the creamiest latte, this recipe uses 2 combined techniques, for making a chai and for making a latte, including pulling the tea. Don't skip the pulling part as it will improve the flavour.
What is a gingerbread spice mix?
Gingerbread spice mix is warm and aromatic mix of spices that includes ginger and cinnamon as main ingredients, and a whole range of additional ingredients – cloves, nutmeg, black pepper, allspice, aniseed and star anise. You can make your own blend by mixing. 3 parts of cinnamon, 3 parts of ginger, and 1 part of nutmeg, cloves, allspice each and ½ part of black pepper. There's no one way to mix spices, and you can adjust ratios to find your perfect flavour. Alternatively, you can buy a pre-made spices. Pre-made spices are widely available and will give an unmistakable gingerbread flavour to your latte. Gingerbread spice mix is similar to pumpkin pie spice, but it's more flavourful, contains more ginger, and very often black pepper too.
Oolong Gingerbread Latte Recipe
To make the best Oolong Gingerbread latte, always use flavourful oolong tea, whole milk, and fresh spices. You can replace whole milk with a dairy free alternative with a milk-like flavour and vegan condensed milk alternative.
Oolong Gingerbread Latte Recipe
Equipment
- small saucepan
- Milk frother
- Kitchen strainer
- 2 cups
Ingredients
- 300 ml of water
- 100 ml of milk
- 1 tablespoon condensed milk
- ½ teaspoon of gingerbread spices
- 2 heaped teaspoons of roasted oolong such as dark Formosa oolong
- ½ teaspoon of brown sugar
Instructions
- Add tea leaves, spices and water to a small saucepan.
- Bring it to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Strain the tea into a clean cup and add condensed milk. Pour the tea from one cup into another several until you get a layer of bubbly froth. Add sugar and stir.
- Add milk into a clean saucepan and heat it over low fire. You can add a pinch of spices to flavour the milk too. Froth it using a milk forther.
- Pour the milk into tea.