This month’s edition of IMBB with the theme “Has My Blog Jelled?” is being graciously hosted by Elise at Simply Recipes.

Much as I promised myself to join each IMBB as is humanly possible, I wasn’t very enthusiastic about staying in front of the stove in the summer heat. I initially thought of crema de fruta, a sponge cake encrusted with fruit cocktail and set with gelatine. But no baking for now, otherwise I might just combust.

So, what’s easy and not so common? I’ve posted Ginilu already, a beverage of thin coconut milk with agar cubes. Since it’s extremely hot, why not another beverage? Sago’t gulaman (tapioca pearls with agar cubes in a light banana-flavoured syrup) is common but I can do better than that and try my own version of milk tea.

Now, I’m a fastidious tea drinker. I prefer it strong and plain without sugar, the water hot enough but not near boiling to burn the tea leaves. But I also like fruity and floral iced teas. I’ve also tried some concoctions such as nai cha. “High tea and low tea” person I am.

The commercial nai cha that I’ve tasted use black gulaman (jelly) for the condensed milk to sweeten the beverage. I had other ideas. Why not flavour plain agar with tea and to make the drink richer, use fresh carabao’s (Bubalus carabanesis) milk? Carabao’s milk has a higher fat content, think of mozzarella cheese. And so the stage was set!

Here, I repeat what I wrote in a previous post, “to make this beverage, we use gulaman, which is a generic Filipino term to mean either gelatine or agar-agar. In the Philippines, and most of Asia probably, agar is more commonly available than animal by-product gelatine. This is made from seaweeds and is the choice for vegetarians and vegans, is kosher and halal. Gulaman is sold in markets and groceries in plain and coloured dried bars, which is shredded and boiled till thoroughly dissolved. In this case, a very small amount of sugar was added to the boiling agar just so it doesn’t taste too flat. It then sets at room temperature and can be facilitated by setting the pan in a basin of iced water.”

For the milk tea recipe, I used the same procedure in the Ginilu post but used only half the amount of water to melt the agar bars then the rest of the amount in tepid tea before cooling to set.

For the sweetener, instead of condensed milk, I made some syrup using ten tablespoons of sugar to approximately the same amount of water and melted it over medium heat until it was reduced 3/4 of the amount.

Fill 1/3 of a tall glass with cold tea and then the syrup (adjust taste as appropriate). Add the agar cubes and ice then pour in approximately the same amount of milk as tea (tea:milk ratio = 1:1). Adjust the proportions according to preference.

I am so glad I tried this very delicate concoction. The combination of cold agar, tea and carabao’s milk makes for a perfect summer cooler. I used black tea for this recipe but any tea might do. I’ll try some jasmine tea tomorrow.

Pilgrim’s Milk Tea (approximate amount of ingredients)

5 cups strong tea, including what will be used for the agar (black tea and the like)
1 cup tea infused agar cubes
half a cup of sugar
2 cups carabao’s milk

Will make around 2-3 tall glasses

Thank you Elise, for hosting this month’s edition of IMBB!

Elise’s round-up of entries can be found here. Read on and have your fill!