Thai tea substitutes

Assam, Ceylon or plain English breakfast tea, brewed at double the normal strength for five minutes with the whole spices in the pot. Strain, sweeten, then pour over ice and float condensed or evaporated milk on top.

Best for

Thai iced tea, cha yen, Thai tea lattes, boba drinks, ice cream base

The closest thing you can build from a supermarket and honestly hard to distinguish once the condensed milk goes in. Untreated black tea alone tastes cleaner and less perfumed, so the spices are doing real work here rather than being optional. Add a quarter teaspoon of vanilla extract per two cups if you want the last few percent. The only thing you cannot reproduce is the orange colour.

The fine broken-leaf tea at the bottom of a bag of loose tea, or any inexpensive strong Ceylon. Brew hard and strain through a cloth or fine sieve.

Best for

Thai iced tea, cha yen, milk tea, boba

Better than good tea for this purpose, which surprises people. Thai shops use cheap dust-grade tea precisely because it brews fast, extracts hard and stays tannic enough to cut through sweetened condensed milk. A delicate single-estate tea gets steamrolled by the milk and sugar. Add the spices as above; without them it tastes like plain strong milk tea.

Any masala chai blend, brewed at two bags per cup for five minutes. Do not add extra spices, since the blend already has plenty.

Best for

Thai iced tea, milk tea, boba drinks

The nearest thing on a supermarket shelf and a very usable swap, but the spice profile shifts. Masala chai leads with ginger, clove, cinnamon and black pepper, while Thai tea leads with star anise, so the drink tastes warmer and more peppery and reads distinctly Indian rather than Thai. A single star anise added to the pot pulls it back toward cha thai.

Strong Earl Grey with a star anise pod added to the pot to soften the bergamot.

Best for

milk tea, iced tea

Workable but distinctly not Thai. Bergamot is a loud, floral citrus perfume that survives condensed milk, so the finished drink is recognisably an Earl Grey milk tea rather than a Thai one. Some people prefer it. If it is what you have, brew it strong and skip any added vanilla, which fights the bergamot.

For when you have no whole spices at all. Brew the tea at double strength, then stir the vanilla and cinnamon into the sweetened tea while it is still hot.

Best for

Thai iced tea, milk tea, boba

Gets you a warm, faintly spiced sweet tea that works well under condensed milk. The missing piece is the anise, which is the single most identifiable note in Thai tea mix, so the drink tastes rounder and less liquorice-like. Ground spices also cloud the tea and settle, so strain or expect sediment.

Listed so you do not waste ingredients. Thai green iced tea does exist as its own drink, but it is not a substitute for cha thai.

Best for

a different drink entirely

The whole architecture of Thai iced tea depends on a heavily tannic black tea base standing up to a large amount of sweetened condensed milk. Green tea and oolong are too delicate and go flat and vegetal under it, and rooibos turns thin and slightly medicinal. If black tea is genuinely unavailable, make something else rather than this.