How to Make Hong Kong Lemon Tea (凍檸茶 Dong Ling Cha): Authentic Recipe

Making a authentic glass of Hong Kong lemon tea is easy, here's the full recipe.

Dong ling cha (凍檸茶) is the drink sitting right next to milk tea on every cha chaan teng menu, made from the exact same tea. Most English-language recipes miss that connection. They treat it as a separate, generic iced tea, reaching for Earl Grey, tea bags, and a gentle steep. None of that is how it is actually made.

Prep: 2 min · Boil: 7 min · Assembly: 4 min · Total: about 13 min · Makes: about 8 glasses (1.2 litres of tea, diluted) · Serve: over ice

Dong ling cha (凍檸茶) is the drink sitting right next to milk tea on every cha chaan teng menu, made from the exact same tea. Most English-language recipes miss that connection. They treat it as a separate, generic iced tea, reaching for Earl Grey, tea bags, and a gentle steep. None of that is how it is actually made.

The tea base is identical to Hong Kong milk tea. Loose Ceylon and Assam black tea, boiled hard (not steeped) then diluted with water instead of milk. The dilution ratio varies from shop to shop, from roughly equal parts tea and water to about one part tea to two parts water. Lemon goes in fresh and sweetener is added at the glass. The tea itself is never brewed from a bag.

Only want one glass? Don't try to shrink the brewing step. A tea base this small doesn't extract reliably, and no cha chaan teng brews one cup at a time either. Make the full batch (about 8 glasses, roughly 225 ml of diluted tea each), keep the rest refrigerated for up to 2-3 days, and assemble a fresh glass whenever you want either HK lemon tea, or HK milk tea.

Nobody sweetens this for you at a cha chaan teng, and everybody has an opinion about how many lemon slices is correct. This is the version I make at home, using the same tea base as the milk tea, poured cold and on the lighter side of sweet, which is how I like it.

→ Jump straight to the recipe

Ingredients

Recipe

Hong Kong Lemon Tea (凍檸茶, Dong Ling Cha)

Prep 2 min Boil 7 min Total ~11 min + chilling Makes ~8 glasses (1.2 L)

Ingredients

• 1,200 ml (5 cups) water
• 15 g (0.5 oz) Ceylon black tea
• 10 g (0.35 oz) Assam
• 4 g (0.15 oz) bo lei (普洱, Pu'er)
• About 600 ml (2.5 cups) water, to dilute (roughly half the tea's volume, adjust toward equal parts if you prefer it lighter)
• 3-5 slices fresh lemon per glass
• Sugar or syrup, to taste (2-3 tsp sugar, or 1-2 small syrup portions, per glass, as a starting point)
• Plenty of ice

Method

1. Boil the tea. Bring the 1,200 ml of water to a boil. Add the Ceylon, Assam and bo lei, and boil for 7-10 minutes at a full rolling boil and not a gentle steep. This is the same tea base as Hong Kong milk tea. It'll taste harsh on its own.
2. Rest and strain. Turn off the heat, rest 2 minutes, then strain through a cloth sock strainer into a heatproof jug.
3. Assemble. Fill a tall glass generously with ice. Pour 75-100 ml of tea, and 100-125 ml of water over it. Shops vary dilution ratios, generally falling between 1/3 tea with 2/3 water, or 1/2 water, and you can adjust depending on how strong you like it. Add 3-5 fresh lemon slices.
4. Sweeten to taste. Add sugar or syrup at the glass: 2-3 teaspoons of sugar (stirred into the hot tea concentrate), or 1-2 small syrup portions, is a realistic starting point to cut through the ice, but this really is down to personal preference. Serve with a straw, and press the lemon gently against the glass as you drink to release its juice and oils.

Tea base shares the same method as our Hong Kong milk tea recipe. If you have found yourself here after a lemon tea gone wrong, the companion piece on where most recipes go wrong covers the mistakes in more depth.

A note on hot lemon tea

Hot lemon tea (熱檸茶, yit ning cha) is made the same way, minus the ice. The tea base, dilution, and self-serve sweetening all carry over. This recipe, though, is built for the iced version, where the drink actually comes alive.

The method in pictures

FAQ

What is dong ling cha?
Dong ling cha (凍檸茶) is Hong Kong-style iced lemon tea, a cha chaan teng staple made from the same black tea base as Hong Kong milk tea, diluted with water, served over ice with fresh lemon slices. Dong (凍) means iced, ling (檸, short for 檸檬) is lemon, and cha (茶) is tea. The hot version is yit ning cha (熱檸茶); the general term covering both is ning cha or ning mung cha (檸茶 / 檸檬茶).

Is Hong Kong lemon tea the same tea as Hong Kong milk tea?
Yes, at cha chaan teng they share the same Ceylon and Assam black tea concentrate (茶胆). The difference is what happens after brewing: milk tea is cut with evaporated milk, lemon tea is diluted with water and finished with lemon. The exact dilution ratio for lemon tea varies by shop, ranging from roughly equal parts tea and water to about one part tea to two parts water.

Should Hong Kong lemon tea be brewed with tea bags?
No. Authentic cha chaan teng lemon tea is made from loose, broken-grade Ceylon and Assam black tea, boiled hard, not steeped from bags. Bagged tea and gentle steeping produce a thinner, weaker cup than the real thing.

Do you boil or steep the tea for Hong Kong lemon tea?
Boil. The tea base is hard-boiled, exactly as for Hong Kong milk tea, not steeped gently at a controlled temperature. Many English-language recipes call for steeping, but that is not the traditional method.

Is Earl Grey used in traditional Hong Kong lemon tea?
No. Traditional cha chaan teng lemon tea uses a Ceylon and Assam black tea blend. Earl Grey lemon tea is a real but modern variation served at a small number of newer-style cafes, valued for its bergamot fragrance, but it is not the traditional cup.

Can I use Lipton tea for Hong Kong lemon tea?
It works as a fallback if you cannot access proper loose Ceylon or Assam tea, since Lipton's Ceylon leaf gets you reasonably close. But it is a compromise, not what cha chaan teng actually brew – they use unbranded wholesale loose tea, not a retail bagged brand.

Is Hong Kong lemon tea pre-sweetened?
Not always. Many shops serve it unsweetened with syrup on the side so you can add your own. This recipe follows that convention: sweeten at the glass, to taste, rather than pre-sweetening the batch.

How do you eat or use the lemon slices in Hong Kong lemon tea?
Press them gently against the side of the glass with a straw or spoon as you drink, to release juice and aromatic oils. Do not crush them hard. The bitterness some people get from homemade lemon tea usually comes from rupturing the white pith underneath the peel, not from the lemon itself.

Can I make just one glass of Hong Kong lemon tea?
Not by shrinking the brewing step. A tea base this small doesn't extract reliably at a tiny volume, and cha chaan teng never brew one cup at a time either. Make the full batch, refrigerate what you don't drink straight away, and assemble a fresh glass whenever you want one – the diluted tea keeps for 2 to 3 days in the fridge, though it's best not to push it much beyond that.