My homemade London Fog Latte is one of the most popular recipes on my blog, and for good reason: it’s delicious, it’s simple, and it’s very inexpensive compared to the store-bought variety.  I’m kind of proud of the recipe, if I’m honest.

What I learned while I came up with the London Fog Latte was that the technique for making this lends itself to most other hot beverages.  Basically, you take a strong preparation of the regular hot beverage (coffee, tea, espresso, etc.) and top it with foamed milk.

For The Tea

For a tea latte, the trick is to make the tea strong enough that when you add the milk the drink isn’t diluted.  If you’re a regular tea drinker you know that if you steep tea too long, the result is a very bitter cup.  So I’ve found that the better answer is to use double the amount of tea and a slightly shorter steeping time.  This way you end up with strong but still delicious tea.

For the Chai Latte, I use one chai tea bag and one black tea bag and steep them in 8 ounces of water that is just off the boil for about 3-4 minutes.  Then, I sweeten the tea with sugar.  Normally I don’t sweeten my tea, but for a Chai Latte I think a teaspoon of sugar is vital to bringing out the spicy flavors.

For The Milk

The next part of a tea latte is the same as any other latte: steaming or foaming the milk.  The traditional way of doing this is with the steaming wand of an espresso machine.  In the London Fog Latte recipe I used my espresso machine to foam the milk, but I no longer have that machine (it was really crappy) so these days I use a much easier method.  The bubbles from foaming the milk using these methods aren’t as perfectly tiny as those made with an espresso machine, but they are still really good.

My favorite milk to use is Almond Breeze almond milk.  It foams up really nicely and I like the taste of it.  Soy milk also foams well, but make sure to use a full fat milk, the low-fat varieties won’t foam.  Cow milk will foam well also, I just rarely have it on hand.

For the Chai Latte, I like to add a small shake of nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger to the milk before foaming for extra flavor, but that’s completely optional.

Note: If you’re making more than one latte, foam the milk in separate batches for each.  I find that attempting to foam more than 1/2 cup of milk doesn’t work nearly as well.

Method 1:  A Milk Frother

I’m a big fan of this Ikea milk frother (called Produkt).  It costs $2.99 at Ikea right now and it’s a fantastic tool in the kitchen.  Well worth the tiny investment in my opinion.  There are many other brands out there as well.

Pour yourself about 1/3 cup of milk (or more if you like) in a glass that has straight sides (I’m not sure why, but milk seems to foam best in this type of glass).  If you have a steaming pitcher, use that.  Warm the milk in the microwave for about 45 seconds to one minute. Then place the frother in the glass and turn it on for about 30 seconds and voila! you have frothed milk.

Method 2: A Whisk

The second method for frothing your milk is much less technical: place a whisk in a large glass filled with 1/3 cup of milk (you can warm the milk in the microwave if you like).  Hold the whisk between the palms of both of your hands and rapidly move them back and forth to spin the whisk.  This method takes a bit of elbow grease but I’m actually starting to like the results of this method better than my milk frother.

Assembling the Tea Latte

Pour your milk into your tea-filled mug, using a spoon to hold back the foam.  Once your milk is poured in, stir the tea to mix in the milk, then spoon the foamed milk on top.  Garnish with a sprinkle of nutmeg or cinnamon.

I’m a morning person.  I don’t know when this happened, but I tend to blame it on law school.  Either way, I’m always up early whether I need to be or not.  I’ve really come to enjoy my mornings because it means some quiet alone time.  I usually make a cup of coffee or tea, grab a book or something else to read, and just chill out for a while.  If I’ve been working on a project, whether it’s for a class or for work, I always look it over in the morning (or, who am I kidding? finish it…).

I don’t have a picture of my drink project this morning because one of the ingredients wasn’t right, but it was still pretty damn good.  Homemade London Fog Tea Latte! I’ve heard a lot of chatter about the Starbucks version of this drink, and I immediately thought to myself “I can totally make that at home!”

Pretend this is a London Fog Latte, that it isn’t near The Bean in Chicago and is sitting on my desk in Syracuse, NY okay?

This drink is a cinch to make!  And suuuuuper cheap!  I’ll even tell you how.  Isn’t that nice of me?

London Fog Latte

Serves 1

1 cup Water

2 Earl Grey Tea Bags

1 Tsp. Sugar

1/2 cup Soy Milk

I have a fairly crappy espresso machine that has a steaming attachment, which makes this frothing the milk a snap although the foam isn’t as good as you can get in a coffee shop.  I’m ok with this, since I don’t have to leave my apartment to have tasty drinks, and you totally can’t beat the cost.

As I mentioned above, this turned out not so pretty because I bought this junky 8th Continent fat free soymilk that’s super watery and just would not stay frothed.  I’ve never had this problem with any other brand of soymilk, and I certainly won’t be buying fat free soymilk anymore for adding to tea and coffee, because it totally lacked the body that I like in my drinks.