Where to drink tea cocktails in Hong Kong: how the city’s mixologists are infusing their beverage menus with innovative recipes at Woo Cheong Tea House, The Envoy and Tell Camellia

Jun 1 , 2022

The Puer Salted Tangerine Old Fashioned at Woo Cheong Tea House crosses the beloved Chinese tea with the classic bourbon cocktail. Photos: Handout

The growing craze for tea in recent years (think bubble tea, yum cha and nai cha) has nudged this age-old aromatic beverage into the domain of cocktail infusion

Forget TWG and Twinings: Tell Camellia’s Gagan Gurung uses exotic teas, and Karlton Cheung’s Puer concoction is a signature at Woo Cheong Tea House, paired with dim sum

China’s love affair with tea is well known. The country is the largest tea producer in the world and one of the largest consumers of the drink, too. Lu Yu wrote the world’s first monograph on the subject, The Classic of Tea, more than a thousand years ago in the Tang dynasty.

Here in the present day, Hongkongers still go crazy over tea, whether it’s a cup of nai cha for breakfast, some Puer alongside yum cha, or a bubble tea in the afternoon. It should come as no surprise then that tea cocktails are becoming a common sight on bar menus around town.

It’s not just the local preference for tea that makes this a sensible idea, though. The various essences of different Chinese teas – from the earthiness of Puer to the floral notes of jasmine, not to mention different teas from further afield – provide a range of rare flavours that can create cocktails with distinctive profiles.

Gagan Gurung has been leading this revolution since 2019 when he opened the “100 per cent tea-influenced” Tell Camellia in Central where all of the cocktails are made with tea – either camellia or tisane.

All the cocktails served at Tell Camellia are made with tea of some sort. Photo: Handout

Forget TWG or Twinings, there’s a world of tea at Gurung’s establishment. Cocktails are named by country and make use of a particular tea grown there. Guests will notice familiar teas on the menu – Sencha (Japan), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Assam (India) – but more exotic teas also feature. The Australia recipe is home to a medley of flavours including Yalanji rain tea, Tim Tams, clarified strawberries, blue cheese, koala munchies and whisky, while the Brazil is a punchy mix of Brazilian BOP tea and a mate distillate paired with yuzu, coriander, acai berries, spices, mescal and cachaca. It’s innovative combinations like these that pushed Tell Camellia to No 23 on last year’s Asia’s 50 Best Bars list.

Customers’ current favourite, though, is the Teapresso Martini. A combination of hojicha tea, vodka and malted cacao, topped with pistachio dust, its roasted, nutty, dark chocolate flavours linger on the palate, while its frothy texture matches that of an Espresso Martini, one of Gurung’s inspirations.

“I’ve always dreamed about making cocktails that have a strong tea profile but which are simple and easy to make anywhere around the world,” he says. “I did a Google search and couldn’t find anything along those lines, so I started researching flavour profiles and textures, which I think are perfectly balanced in this cocktail.”

Karlton Cheung, bar manager of Woo Cheong Tea House. Photo: Handout

It’s not just bars that are getting in on the act. Woo Cheong Tea House, which occupies the space vacated by The Pawn in Wan Chai, serves an array of tea-based cocktails alongside its baskets of dim sum. There are six house signatures on the menu using osmanthus, jasmine, oolong, Puer, lap sang and chrysanthemum teas.