What kind of milk/cream do you put in your tea?

When I am drinking Chai or my morning Black (English style, I learned from my dad) I use Half & Half or just actual cream. Once in a while I will use Whole Milk but nothing with less milk fat than that because it waters my tea down too much.

My dad would take his with 2% which I never liked.

i’ve been curious about adding rice milk to harney’s soba tisane since it already has a toasted rice flavor.

almond milk, only in breakfast teas/in the morning.

Personally, I use organic skim milk (dairy), but I find it has a lot less to do with what milk than how much milk I use. I use a lot less milk than I would in coffee, barely a bloop. And sometimes I put too much even then. It’s a very small amount.

I don’t add milk to teas too often, but my general rule is that milk goes into strong black teas, especially if they are produced in areas or consumed in areas that put milk in tea. (So any English/Irish breakfast blend gets milk, as do Chai blends most of the time, and any strongly brewing teas from India or Sri Lanka, so Assam teas and Ceylon teas. I drink mostly Chinese style blacks, and I’m much less inclined to add milk to them, which means I wouldn’t unless they were blended into a breakfast tea blend.) In my head, it makes sense.

And of course, cream and half and half are way better than skim milk, but my girly figure has to be kept. Unless I’m being horrible. I also sometimes use coconut milk, since that’s what I put in coffee if I’m trying to cut out dairy. (Since I have a horrible weakness to cheese, when I try to eat less dairy, I always default to avoiding milk.)

I don’t use much milk or cream in coffee; just a tiny splash, enough to make the tea milky looking, but still with the appearance of water, if that makes any sense.

I have the same habits when I drink coffee, although I don’t drink any coffee without milk. (Coffee is so rough on my digestive system and tastes so astringent without milk. People who drink black coffee amaze me.) But the reason I use coconut milk instead of almond milk in tea is because I think almond milk blends terribly with coffee—it just doesn’t cut the taste well enough. So I use coconut milk in tea too.

I add 2% milk – usually to masala chai, blended black teas (Earl Grey, Yorkshire, English/Irish Breakfast), and certain-graded African black teas if they’re too malty.

Wow, so many responses! Thanks everyone. I will definitely be trying both coconut and almond milk in my teas. I can’t wait to try them! It had never occurred to me to try anything other than regular dairy milk. (Also, I now see that I was originally putting in waaaay too much.)

As they do in East Frisia, I usually add a small bit of cream, or at least half and half, to my black tea. I never use milk.

For breakfast teas, chocolately teas and chai, I usually use 1% or 2%. While I am generally a fan of heavy creams, I find anything more than 2% tends to overpower the tea.

For Thai tea and sometimes for chai I’ll also used sweetened condensed milk, which is sweet and rich and just amazing.

For malasa chai (and some black tea) I usually go for almond milk or rice milk.