When I first heard about cheese tea, it was “China’s latest drink sensation” and the latest Instagram-worthy food trend. The combination of cheese and tea seemed incomprehensible to me.

Food trends keep changing every few months, and I figured this was one of them: just hype and no substance. I’d discovered and fallen in love with bubble tea during my time in Austin, Texas, so I thought cheese tea was yet another experimental concoction.

But then I read up on it, and I wanted to try it.

So, what’s cheese tea?

Cheese tea is essentially cold tea (usually green or black tea, with or without milk) that’s topped with a foamy layer of milk and cream cheese and sprinkled with salt. You can’t drink it using a straw because you’d only get the flavor of the tea and not the cream cheese.

Instead, you sip it from the top of the cup at a 40- to 45-degree angle so that you get the sweetness and bitterness of the tea and the saltiness and creaminess of the cheese at one go. It's a burst of flavors.

To people who don’t know me well enough yet, let me tell you when I plan a trip to another country or city, I always research the food options and look up restaurants I need to visit.

It’s one of those quirky things I do. I not only check my hotel's location on Google Maps about a dozen times but also make a list of local foods I need to try.

On my last trip to Bangkok in 2019, I had cheese tea on my list because I found out there was one place closest to our hotel serving cheese tea: Heekcaa.

After successful stints in South Korea and Vietnam, Guangzhou-born tea chain Heekcaa arrived in Bangkok in 2017. And based on my research, I knew they were in the Siam Discovery mall in Bangkok.

Siam Discovery looked like one of those smaller malls on the map. Little did I know that we’d have to walk for at least 40 minutes from the Siam BTS train stop through different connecting malls and stores to get to Heekcaa. I remember asking for directions from at least five people on the way.

But finally, we made it!

I wish I had taken a picture of every type of cheese tea they had, but the picture below is the best one I have. They had so many varieties of cheese tea; I was so confused!

I stood there in line wondering if I should order the bubble cheese milk tea, but I was here to try the original cheese tea.

So, I ended up ordering a Mango Strawberry Cheese Tea, and trust me, it was divine! Isn’t it drool-worthy?

As I had mentioned in my introductory post, I’m a foodie whose food adventures have only just begun. Stay tuned for lots more drool-worthy adventures, stories, and pictures.

See you next week!

P.S. Have you tried cheese tea? Did you like it?

Photo credits and copyright: Kritika Kulshrestha

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Cheers,

Kritika

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