Cheese Tea is one of the latest beverage trends, started in China and made famous by HEYTEA, a tea brand in China where they successfully secured funding of 100 million Chinese Yuan. During the uprising of Cheese Tea, I was there in Guanzhou and witness their operations, they were very protective of their operation and I was stopped from filming each time when I held my camera trying to capture their line of operation.
However, I manage to peek in and see most of the ingredients they were using, and here I am sharing them with you!
Here is the Best Cheese Tea Recipe for you!
Peeking Into HEYTEA’s Barista Line When They Were Preparing the Salted Cheese Foam Layer!
Who Started Cheese Tea?
Well, I believe cheese foam pairing with tea was there in the market for quite a while, but it wasn’t done right, until HEYTEA steps in and makes this beverage a trend. Initially, Regius Tea and Royaltea was the close competitor of HEYTEA, but eventually, they lost the battle after HEYTEA manage to secure their first round of funding of 100 million Chinese Yuan.
Author have a say…
Cheese tea is now the latest food trend, emerging from China, the craze for Cheese Tea is just crazy. Coming back to Malaysia, there is a few other Cheese Tea seller who also entered the market here, namely – Regius Tea, Chizu Drink Japanese Cheese Tea and Royaltea (皇茶). Having my previous experience with HEYTEA at Guangzhou and Chizu Drink at Sunway Pyramid. With HEYTEA (喜茶) being the crown of Cheese Tea in China, I’ve decided to do a little experiment of mine in an attempt to imitate their Cheese Tea. (I just REVISED the cheese tea recipe here!)
HEYTEA Inspired Cheese Tea Recipe!
Ingredients
Salted Cheese Foam
- 250 ml Whip Cream (any brands would do)
- 30 g Cream Cheese (I prefer Philadelphia)
- 30 g Cream Cheese Powder (Anchor brand, or any brand you can find locally)
- 100 ml Fresh Milk (Full Cream, Whole Milk)
- 1/5 tsp Salt (add more if needed)
- 50 g Sugar
Tea
- 1 bag Any tea of your choice (green tea, matcha, earl grey, jasmine, oolong, etc)
- 1 tbsp Sugar (add more if you like)
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Instructions
Brew Tea
- Brew your tea of choice with 400ml of hot water.
- Let it chill and keep it refrigerated.
Cheese Foam
- Add cream cheese. cream cheese powder and milk into a bowl and whisk.
- Whisk until all the cheese has dissolved.
- Add UHT Whip Cream, sugar, and salt and beat on low speed.
- Whisk until all the sugar and salt have dissolved.
- Then check consistency and beat to medium peak.
- Covered with cling wrap and keep chilled.
Serving
- Prepare a clean 400ml cup.
- Pour the chilled tea into the cup.
- Then gently scoop a sufficient amount of Cheese on top of the tea.
- Lastly, dust some matcha powder over the cheese foam.
Video
Notes
Tips
- The reason why I’ve changed the sequence than what you watched in the video is I found out that the cheese is difficult to be dissolved if I have the cheese add-in after beating the UHT whip cream.
- Whip Cream is usually only beaten to peak consistency if it is for cake decorations.
- If you use full peak whip cream, the taste would be greasy instead of creamy.
Hi Ethan,
May I know why cream cheese powder is needed? Can we skip the cream cheese powder and add more some cream cheese?
Hi Antoni,
Not very sure why, when they were preparing it and thats what I saw they added. You can try without the cream cheese powder though. Perhaps you could share with me what is your outcome ?
Hi Ethan, What s brand the cheese cream powder you use?
Hi Hoai, the brand I used was Kraft. Not necessarily the same brand, as long as it is cream cheese powder.
where can I find cream cheese powder in the supermarket?
not all supermarket sell cream cheese powder I think. You will have better chances of finding them at a pastry supply store.
Hi Ethan,
I found that the cheese sinks a bit into the tea at first and floats back up immediately. And when I add more and more cheese, the cheese doesn’t link together like I expected – so it’s like chunks of cheese floating on top of the tea, which looks a bit gross.
Have you experienced that during your experiments?
Thanks.
Hi Vincent,
That didn’t occur to me before. Hmm ??
Could be over-beating of the cream. If you over beat the cream, the cream wouldn’t fold well with the cheese. Also over beat cream tend to taste greasy to our palate, this would also occurred with any cheese cakes including Tiramisu.
I know cheese foam is very popular now but creme brûlée topping is also popular, too. Can you perhaps try to recreate that?
Hi Phoebe! Creme brûlée topping? Would love to try it! But I haven’t seen that before, where do you suggest for me to check them out? Any videos, perhaps?
Used your recipe and it worked great! Thank you for this ??
Most welcome! Glad that it helps you out!
Is it ok if I use regular whip cream instead of UHT whip cream?
Also, is fresh milk the same as whole milk?
Hey, whipping cream is fine.
Also whole milk is fine as well.
Awesome! Thank you, Ethan! Still waiting for my cream cheese order to arrive, will let you know how it turns out. I’m excited!!
Looking forward to it! Do take some pictures ??
hi, can i use parmesan cheese powder for that cheese tea??
thank you
Hi Bryan, I’ve tried before with Parmesan Cheese Powder. They tasted a little weird to me. They will float as the usual cheese foam though.
Hi ethan, thank for your kindness to share the cheese tea recipe
I’d like to ask about the cheese powder
Is it the same cheese powder as we use it to make a sauce and topping?
Thanks ?
Hi Ely,
I believe the type of cheese powder u are saying is cheddar cheese powder. If it is cheddar cheese powder, it doesn’t goes well with the flavor of the tea.
You will need to search for cream cheese powder. Any brand would do, as long as it is cream cheese powder.
Hope this helps!
Hi ethan . Thanks for your video and recipe.. in my experiment im changing cream cheese powder using a total of 60g cream cheese . And then my cheese cream not becoming as solid as your.. and its blend with the tea .. how to make it more solid? Do i need more cream cheese or else?.. thankss ..
Hi Jeff, i think it is because your cream is still underbeat. U will need to make sure that u got a medium-peak consistency for the cream.
ow thanks tommorow i will try to make become medium peak .. make new or just re beat my old one ? Cz right now still in the refrigator and covered with plastic wrap
You could try to further beat them and see. Not very sure, pastry is not my specialty, but no harm try though.
SUPERR..
Thanks about your answer.. hope your business keep growing.. thankss?????
Thank you Jeff! Keep visiting and feel free to ask me anything about food, i will try to answer you as long as it is within my knowledge.
Hi Ethan,
Can you please name all brand of ingredients you used to make the tea please?
It would be very helfupl I tried 8 times with different brands and it failed :(.
I’m going to china soon you think I might find some there ?
Thanks!
Hi Najla!
This recipe was created quite some time ago. i don’t remember all the brands but I’ve include the necessary details below;
1. Cream cheese – Kraft
2. Cream cheese powder – not sure, I brought from a pastry store where they repacked.
3. Milk – use fresh whole milk, full cream milk will do. Do not use skim milk, low fat milk, flavored milk, milk solids (meaning those that are sold in room temperature) or creamer.
4. Cream – Use pastry grade Whipping cream, UHT cream. Avoid using cooking cream cause cooking cream will have thickener or stabilizer added.
5. Sugar – any regular sugar would do, coarse or fine is usable.
6. Salt – any salt will do. For better quality, use flake salt, sea salt, himalayan salt.
I believe that the issue that you faced is the technique, I am guessing.
Perhaps you could DM on my Facebook page when you are making them and send me pictures of your progress, then I could guide you more detail there.
Xoxo,
Ethan
Hi,
Thank you very much I’ll try to go with same way you explained and will take some photos to show you, I don’t have facebook but I might registrar.
Thank you very much. Will try Doing the tea and show you. 😀
Regards,
Hi can i know which pastry shop did you buy the cream cheese powder? I could not find it anywhere
Hi Ethan l love your recipe were can l get cream cheese powder in Zimbabwe
Hi Ethan can you please tell me the brand of cream cheese, whipping cream and milk you used in your video please
Hi Joseph,
cream cheese – Philadelphia brand, I tried others, they just could not produce the type of creaminess intended.
whipping cream and milk is fine, simply use some prominent brand that is taste cream should be fine.
Cream cheese would be more important.
I also have recreated this cheese tea to a much simpler version, check it out here;
https://3thanwong.com/simple-cheese-tea-recipe-revised/
The cream cheese powder makes me cry, it’s impossible to find in Europe without importing for an extremely high price :(( I will try substituting it with milk powder or omitting it completely and I’ll make sure to post my results!!! Thank you so much for writing such a detailed recipe
Hi Ren, I have made another much simpler cheese tea recipe, but equally delish!
try it here;
https://www.3thanwong.com/simple-cheese-tea-recipe-revised/