2024 Chiang Mai Thai Tea
I occasionally enjoy drinking Thai tea in Taiwan, and this time I went to Chiang Mai for a month. Before leaving, I thought it would be perfect to have a Thai tea journey and drink Thai tea every day.
So during my 24 days in Chiang Mai, I almost had a Thai tea every day - whether it was at cafes, restaurants, or street stalls, whenever I saw “cha thai” on the menu, I ordered it!
After the trip ended, I thought I’d create a ranking.
Why it matters: Because Thai tea is delicious, dedicated to everyone who loves Thai tea and is planning to visit Chiang Mai.
Rankings
The rankings sound impressive, but it’s really just Thai teas that left a deep impression and tasted great. However, for a Thai tea to be memorable is not easy, because often you drink a few sips and feel it’s similar to other Thai teas, then quietly forget about it. So the ones I’ve recorded are all distinctive and have special flavors.
I’m not a food critic, so I can’t describe flavors in amazing detail - delicious is just delicious. (Nice pun)
The ones that left a deep impression this time are these, ranked from highest to lowest power:
Hotel’s homemade Thai tea
The others were forgotten after drinking, so they didn’t make it to the rankings.
Charlie
This is a shop specializing in Thai tea, and even the ordering process is different. First, you can choose different Thai tea combinations, such as:
THE OG: Regular Thai tea
CHARLIE: Thai tea + sea salt caramel foam
SOMSRI: Juice + Thai tea
COCO NATACHA: Coconut juice + Thai tea, no milk
You can also choose different tea leaves. The shop provides several different boxes for you to smell the different tea aromas. I originally thought I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, but you really can smell the differences - some smell like toffee black tea, others like cassia seed.
In the end, I chose the tea leaves that smelled like toffee + CHARLIE, and it was incredibly delicious.
The tea and milk flavors are very balanced, not particularly leaning toward either side. The amazing part is the sea salt caramel foam - when you get a bit tired of the Thai tea flavor, pairing it with the foam brings out another flavor profile. The salty-sweet combination is smooth and very harmonious.
Third Place Coffee - Chiang Mai
This is a coffee shop, but their Thai tea is quite distinctive.
The ordering process wasn’t particularly special, just like ordering coffee normally. What’s special is that the Thai tea is packaged in aluminum cans. The can design looks good, and touching the very cold aluminum can in hot weather is very satisfying.
The flavor is also different - the tea taste is very strong with a slight bitterness. When drinking Thai tea, I like strong tea flavor paired with some milk, so this canned Thai tea was perfect for my taste.
Hotel Thai Tea
Surprisingly, the hotel breakfast offered the option to make your own Thai tea. Only when actually making it did I realize that Thai tea is just Thai tea leaves paired with condensed milk. The hotel provided Cha Thai tea leaves + condensed milk, and you just had to mix them yourself.
What was surprising is that this Thai tea was very delicious - rich tea flavor with enough milk taste. Usually I don’t drink hot Thai tea, and while I still prefer iced, the hot Thai tea was quite impressive and perfect for winter!!