This is an English adaptation of a FoodBud historical article originally published on August 27, 2022.
BBB Research Institute, in an article by Li Xiaowai, traces how China's new beverage sector has been reworking yuenyeung, the Cantonese-Hong Kong drink that combines tea and coffee, into a broader platform for tea-coffee-milk innovation.
Coffee's expansion in China has had an obvious side: three waves of coffee culture rapidly enlarged the market. But it also created a less visible shift. Coffee began to overlap with tea's functional role and with milk tea's lifestyle positioning. Chinese tea brands responded not simply by resisting coffee, but by localizing it.
In China, the development path of tea, coffee and milk has leaned toward fusion. The clearest historical example is yuenyeung: part coffee, part tea, later adapted with evaporated milk, condensed milk and sugar. Around 2020, as coffee again gained momentum in China, yuenyeung found new relevance inside the new-style tea and specialty coffee sectors.
Whether yuenyeung first appeared on Lingnan docks or aboard Hong Kong cargo ships is difficult to verify, but the drink is tied to the introduction of coffee into Hong Kong by the British in the mid-19th century.
One account says dock workers, doing heavy manual labor before modern cranes, mixed bitter, stimulating coffee with tea to replenish energy, stay alert and quench thirst. Traditional yuenyeung became a milk tea built on both coffee and tea, often around 70% milk tea and 30% coffee. Because of its mass-market roots, it usually relied on inexpensive broken tea, instant coffee, sugar and evaporated milk.
Lan Fong Yuen is often treated as a defining origin point for Hong Kong-style yuenyeung. In 1952, Lam Muk Ho pioneered a tea-bag brewing method that helped shape Hong Kong-style silk-stocking milk tea: thick, smooth tea that could absorb coffee's acidity and bitterness. Its Central Hong Kong shop remained busy decades later.
Yuenyeung became both a street-food symbol and an example of Chinese-Western cultural blending in Hong Kong. It also entered popular culture through Hong Kong television dramas, where mixing milk tea and coffee became a metaphor for romantic chemistry.
By the time coffee entered a large-scale growth phase in China in the 21st century, consumers had new expectations: specialty-grade products, premium positioning, social spaces and higher overall quality standards.
Chinese tea brands responded by rebuilding yuenyeung in a more Chinese beverage vocabulary. The first upgrade was ingredients. Coffee beans from distinctive origins, including Geisha and Huakui, began to appear as coffee bases. Whole-leaf tea replaced the broken tea used in older versions.
Tea bases also expanded beyond Ceylon black tea. Operators and baristas experimented with rooibos, floral teas, fruit teas, jasmine tea, gardenia tea and oolong. Some drinks kept flavors and colors close to black tea and coffee. Others used golden or green tea liquors, including gardenia, jasmine and Longjing-style green tea, to create lighter, cleaner tea-coffee profiles.
Examples cited in the article include:
Milk also became a central point of differentiation. Blogger Zhong Gangwan noted that Hong Kong-style milk tea commonly uses three evaporated milk options: Double Happiness, Nestle Carnation and Dutch Black & White. Higher total milk solids generally bring more aroma and richness; higher protein improves smoothness and milk flavor, while too much fat can make the drink feel heavy.
The article explains why Dutch Black & White became a widely accepted standard for yuenyeung: as a full-fat evaporated milk made from distilled milk, it offers higher total solids, including protein and fat, giving a fuller and more lingering dairy profile.
As tea shops shifted from individual storefronts into branded chains, they had stronger incentives to prove that their products were better-tasting and healthier. Specialty coffee operators then borrowed from the popularity of ice-bock Dirty drinks, using concentrated ice-bock milk as a yuenyeung base. Stores in Guangzhou and Chengdu offered yuenyeung made with this physically concentrated milk, which has a richer taste, higher protein and lower fat than evaporated milk, aligning with younger consumers' expectations around "no additives" and "low fat."
Processing also changed. Tea extraction methods affect the base significantly: long cold-brewed black tea tastes very different from short hot extraction. Shops with the resources to do so were willing to invest in longer extraction even at higher cost.
One earlier variation, "yuan zou," replaced evaporated milk with condensed milk, removing the need for added sugar. Shops using ice-bock milk found a similar advantage: because physical concentration removes water and raises lactose and protein levels, the drink can taste slightly sweet without extra sugar.
Some operators also adjusted the drink's functional profile. Since both tea and coffee are stimulating, newer yuenyeung products began offering lower-caffeine teas and decaffeinated coffee options.
The article argues that younger Chinese consumers' beverage routines have moved beyond "morning coffee, evening alcohol" toward "morning coffee, afternoon tea or milk tea, evening alcohol." Coffee shops, milk tea stores and pure-tea spaces are all drawing traffic into the evening.
This has changed the role of pure tea and pure coffee. Fusion drinks built around milk, tea and coffee are becoming a key direction for product development.
New-generation tea spaces such as Tea's Stone, Zhuye, Chashouyi, Yinxi Tea House and Kaiji Tea House show how tea has moved away from older at-home brewing rituals and toward modern beverage formats. In March of that year, Chashouyi launched a dark-tea bag product focused on younger consumers' food-based wellness interests. Tea's Stone's first Shanghai store used its space to explain how tea leaves from across China become a cup of tea. Tea-based specialty drinks also began lowering caffeine, making evening tea more feasible.
Independent coffee shops and milk tea brands, meanwhile, were exploring milk-coffee products, with Dirty as a representative format. In Shanghai, O.P.S.'s monthly new menus were cited as anticipated events among coffee fans.
Tea-coffee fusion also moved into chain expansion. In Changsha, Chayan Yuese's coffee sub-brand Yuanyang Coffee opened five stores at once. Its products were divided into milk coffee, pure coffee, specialty drinks and ready-made lines, with names such as "Kongshan Xinyuhou," "La Meizi La," "Rong'er," "Wanban Jieku" and "Zhulin Shenchu," following a naming style similar to Chayan Yuese.
Yuanyang Coffee's core products were described as new Chinese-style coffee-plus-tea drinks: tea was added as the base inside coffee beverages. For example, an Americano-style drink used gardenia green tea as its tea base. On the dairy side, the brand selected ice-bock milk for its richer texture and higher protein content, combining tea fragrance, coffee bitterness and milk body. It also used coconut milk in creative drinks.
In Lingnan, newer yuenyeung formats followed the same logic. A Guangzhou tea shop named after yuenyeung sold only four drinks, with yuenyeung as its signature, turning the tea-coffee base into a tea ice strip for an iced-yuenyeung variation. Another shop, Yuanyang Wang, which had made yuenyeung for 20 years, kept adjusting its pulled-tea technique until seven masters jointly created a new formula.
For international operators, the practical takeaway is not simply to copy yuenyeung. The article points to a broader product-development pattern: start with a familiar imported format, localize it through culturally meaningful ingredients, upgrade the base materials, and rethink dairy, extraction and caffeine levels for the target occasion.
In that sense, yuenyeung's evolution from a simple menu item into a benchmark new-style beverage reflects how traditional foodservice formats can be renewed through ingredient quality, cultural mixing and modern brand operations.