Hong Kong Silk-stocking Coffee
Hong Kong-style coffee, brewed in a cloth bag and "pulled" between kettles in cha chaan teng since the 1950s: the method, a champion’s recipe and yuenyeung.
Contents
How is Hong Kong-style coffee made?
Hong Kong-style coffee is brewed in a cloth bag, the "silk stocking", with near-boiling water, then "pulled": poured through the bag from one kettle into another, from a height. It's simmered, pulled again and served strong, usually with evaporated milk. A 2010 champion's recipe simmers it for 14 and then 10 minutes, with milk at about 1:5.
At a glance
- Grind
- Varies
- Water
- 95–100 °C
- Brew time
- 24:00
- approximately
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
Method
Blend the coffee
Mix one part coarsely ground Colombian coffee with three parts finely ground Brazilian, as the 2010 Hong Kong-style coffee champion does. Dark roasts are usual.
Brew in the bag
Put the coffee in the cloth bag, set it in a kettle and pour on water at 95–100 °C.
Pull once
Lift the bag and pour the coffee through it into a second kettle, from a height of about 70 cm, to "pull" the flavour into the water.
Simmer
Simmer for about 14 minutes, until bubbles form on top.
Pull again and simmer
Pull once more through the bag, then simmer for about 10 minutes. Don't pull or stir too often, which turns the coffee sour.
Add milk and serve
Put evaporated milk in the cup, about one part to five of coffee, and pour the coffee in. Add sugar if you like it.
Hong Kong silk-stocking coffee is the coffee of the city’s cha chaan teng, its tea cafés: strong, dark-roasted coffee brewed in a cloth bag, poured back and forth between kettles, simmered and served with evaporated milk. It’s made by hand, the same way and with the same kit as Hong Kong’s famous milk tea, and locals nickname it wong a je (汪阿姐). Here’s how it’s made, a competition-winning recipe and how to order it.
The short version
- Brewed in a cloth bag with water at 95–100 °C.
- “Pulled”: poured through the bag from kettle to kettle, from a height.
- Simmered for a long time, about 24 minutes in one champion’s recipe.
- Served with evaporated milk, about 1:5, and usually sugar.
- Dark-roasted and strong, bitter-sweet rather than fruity.
What is Hong Kong-style coffee?
Western-style coffee began to appear at Hong Kong’s working-class tea stalls and Western restaurants in the 1950s, Being Media says. Like milk tea, it’s made by hand by the drinks counter’s “water bar” master, using kettles and a cloth bag. Most Hong Kong coffee uses quite dark roasts, so the beans’ own flavours are mostly covered, but the long brew gives a rich, intense, bitter-sweet taste. Some drinkers order it black, fei saa zau naai (“no sugar, no milk”).
The cloth bag is the “silk stocking”. Tea-stained cotton bags used for milk tea look like the silk stockings women once wore, which gave Hong Kong milk tea its nickname, Wikipedia says; the coffee is made the same way.
How do you make Hong Kong silk-stocking coffee?
In 2010 Oriental Daily asked Zhu Yuanxiu (朱元秀), winner of the Hong Kong Coffee and Tea Association’s first Hong Kong-style coffee competition, to show how it’s done:
- Blend the coffee: one part coarsely ground Colombian to three parts finely ground Brazilian. Brazilian coffee is mellow and aromatic and shows best ground fine; the more acidic Colombian is ground coarse to keep its sourness in check.
- Brew: coffee into the cloth bag, then water at 95–100 °C. Water that’s too hot spoils the flavour.
- Pull once, pouring from about 70 cm up, to drive the flavour into the water.
- Simmer for 14 minutes, until bubbles appear.
- Pull again to clear the bubbles, then simmer for 10 minutes.
- Serve over evaporated milk, about 1 part milk to 5 parts coffee.
Source: Oriental Daily News, 14 May 2010. Pulling or stirring too often makes the coffee sour, he warns. The article gives no dose of coffee to water, so this page doesn’t invent one; start strong and adjust.
Where did silk-stocking coffee come from?
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1950s | Western-style coffee reaches Hong Kong’s tea stalls and Western restaurants | Being Media |
| 1952 | Lan Fong Yuen opens in Central; it says it was first to filter coffee through a tea bag, creating “silk-stocking coffee” | TVBS |
| 1952 | Lan Fong Yuen also claims silk-stocking milk tea and yuenyeung; the milk tea claim is generally supported, the yuenyeung claim unverified | Wikipedia |
| 2010 | The Hong Kong Coffee and Tea Association holds its first Hong Kong-style coffee competition | Oriental Daily |
Lan Fong Yuen’s founder, Lum Muk-ho, told TVBS that two cups of coffee once cost more than a catty of rice. The shop’s own method adds four eggshells to the bag, steeps the covered coffee for more than ten minutes and filters it several times, and its roast includes sugar, rice wine and sesame, TVBS reported. That’s one shop’s recipe, not the norm.
What is yuenyeung?
Yuenyeung (鴛鴦) mixes coffee with Hong Kong milk tea: three parts coffee to seven of milk tea, according to Hong Kong’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department, Wikipedia says. It began at dai pai dong and cha chaan teng and is served hot or cold. In Malaysia the same mix is called kopi cham.
Is Hong Kong coffee still popular?
Less than it was. Hong Kong-style coffee has been overtaken by Western chains and specialty cafés, and has faded from daily life even as milk tea stays popular, Being Media wrote in 2024. In 2010 Oriental Daily noted that cha chaan teng coffee was often criticised as weak, too sour or too milky, and argued that the hand-made method deserves another look.
Hong Kong coffee and other cloth-filter methods
- Kopi sock: the cloth-filter coffee of Malaysia and Singapore.
- Chorreador: Costa Rica’s cloth-bag coffee stand.
- Paper vs cloth vs metal filters: what cloth does to the cup.
What you’ll need
Words in this guide
- Roast level
- Roast level describes how long and how hot coffee beans were roasted, usually labelled light, medium or dark.
- Agitation
- Agitation is any movement of the coffee and water during brewing, such as stirring, swirling or a turbulent pour.
- Steeping
- Steeping is leaving ground coffee to sit in water so its flavour dissolves out, as in a French press or cold brew.
Questions & answers
Why is it called silk-stocking coffee?
Because of the cloth bag. The tea-stained cotton bags used for Hong Kong milk tea look like the silk stockings women once wore, Wikipedia says, and the same bags are used for coffee. No stockings are involved.
What does "pulling" coffee mean?
Pouring the brew through the cloth bag from one kettle into another, from a height. In Hong Kong it's called "撞啡", "hitting the coffee". The 2010 champion lifts the pour to about 70 cm and pulls twice, warning that pulling too often makes the coffee sour.
Who invented Hong Kong silk-stocking coffee?
It's not certain. Lan Fong Yuen, a dai pai dong in Central opened in 1952, says it was first to filter coffee through a tea bag, Taiwan's TVBS reported. Western coffee reached Hong Kong's tea stalls from the 1950s, Being Media says.
What is yuenyeung?
Coffee mixed with Hong Kong milk tea: three parts coffee to seven of milk tea, according to Hong Kong's Leisure and Cultural Services Department, as cited by Wikipedia. It's served hot or cold.
How do you order Hong Kong coffee?
Coffee comes with evaporated milk and sugar unless you say otherwise. "Fei saa zau naai", literally "fly the sand, run the milk", means no sugar and no milk; plain black coffee is also called "zaai fe".
Sources
- 咖啡王現身教沖甘香港啡 (The coffee king shows how to make Hong Kong coffee). Oriental Daily News
- 咖啡不及奶茶？港式不如西式？ (Is coffee less popular than milk tea?). Being Media
- 加蛋殼沖泡 絲襪咖啡風味獨特 (Silk-stocking coffee brewed with eggshells). TVBS News
- Hong Kong-style milk tea. Wikipedia
- Yuenyeung. Wikipedia
- Cha chaan teng. Wikipedia
General guidance only. Not medical, food-safety or professional advice. Always follow your equipment's own instructions.