Yuen Yeung:

Coffee with Milk Tea and the Hong Kongers' Resilience after 1952

Thea Yu

November 30, 2021

Introduction

Nowadays, when you walk into any Hong Kong-style tea cafe, you can always find Yuen Yeung 鸳鸯 in the menu's beverage section. When seeing it for the first time, most people outside Hong Kong have no clue what this beverage is. That is because Yuen Yeung is the Cantonese romanization of mandarin duck which seems to have no relation with a beverage. Yet, in Hong Kong caa caan teng (cafe), it is a typical Hong Kong beverage that is made with coffee and Hong Kong-style milk tea. How and why did Yuen Yeung become a popular Hong Kong beverage? What is the relation between Yuen Yeung, the beverage, and the mandarin ducks? What does Yuen Yeung symbolize? In the following sections, I will answer these questions and reveal a story of Yuen Yeung and the resilience of Hong Kongers in the post-1952 period.

How to Make Yuen Yeung?

Before we start, it is crucial to know the recipe and the making process of Yuen Yeung. Firstly, you have to boil the tea bag or tea leaves with the water (“Hong Kong Coffee Milk Tea”). The next step is force-pouring the tea which is called jong cha 撞茶 in Cantonese (“The Heritagization of Milk Tea” 34). Although the majority of people will skip this step due to its difficulty, some tea masters believe that jong cha which is pouring the boiled tea from a very high position over the tea leaves is the most important procedure in the whole making process (“The Heritagization of Milk Tea” 34). It is believed that this step can create the aroma of the tea four to eight times stronger and makes the taste of tea very smooth (“The Heritagization of Milk Tea” 34). The next step is adding the evaporated milk and sugar (“Hong Kong Coffee Milk Tea”). Then, you can add brewed coffee and mix them using the ratio that you prefer (“Hong Kong Coffee Milk Tea”). And boom! A tasteful beverage is done! The simplicity of making Yuen Yeung might contribute to the widespread of it in the streets of Hong Kong. You can even make this flavorful drink at home. Check out this video!

The History of Yuen Yeung

Lin Muhe, the founder of Lan Fong Yuen in Hong Kong which is a traditional caa caan teng (HK-style tea cafe), claims to have invented Yuen Yeung back in 1952 (“Brand”).

To understand the history of Yuen Yeung, one must first examine the history of coffee in Hong Kong. In spite of the fact that the actual date of black coffee being introduced to Hong Kong was unclear, it is widely believed that the popularity of coffee consumption was related to British colonialism in the 1950s (Lee). During the British colonial period, western food and drinks which were usually served in fancy hotels were too expensive for common Hong Kong citizens (“Tea Cafés” 314). Caa caan teng, mimicking the imagined and “compressed western” food and drinks at an affordable price, became the ideal option for the growing working class (“Tea Cafés” 314). Therefore, coffee, as well as other compressed western food, was commonly served in caa caan teng and became available for the general citizens since the 1950s (Lee; “Tea Cafés” 314).

The Upper-Class Story

In an advertisement of the Royal Park Hotel Shantin in South China Morning Post in 1989, the hotel has two lounges: Forget Me Not lobby lounge and the Derby international coffee shop that serve “smoothing tea of India and Sri Lanka” with milk and sugar in a very British style (Royal Park Hotel Shantin). The keywords of this advertisement are “international”, “elegance” and “professional” (Royal Park Hotel Shantin). What’s more, the tablewares in the advertisement are also very exquisite (Royal Park Hotel Shantin). These elements all provide evidence to the argument that coffee and British milk tea which usually served in a fancy hotel were for the higher class or Westerners only during the British colonial times.

The Working-Class Story

Originally, many manual laborers in Hong Kong needed to consume a lot of black coffee to stay physically and psychologically active (“Brand”). Yet, with the development of Hong Kong’s economy, more and more people in Hong Kong have engaged in intellectual work (although they are still considered as working-class) and they started to prefer a more moderate way to refresh their mind, thus tea seems to be a good alternative choice (“Brand”). However, pure tea at that time was too expensive for most Hong Kong working class, as well as the British-style milk tea since fresh milk was expensive as well (“The Heritagization of Milk Tea” 33). Eventually, Lin Muhe improved the recipe and process of making milk tea and innovated the combination of coffee and milk tea with a better taste for a lower price (“Brand”). The secret is: evaporated milk!

Fresh Milk vs. Evaporated Milk

Back in 1959, there was already an advertisement of evaporated milk can on South China Morning Post (a Hong Kong-based English newspaper). The slogan of the advertisement of The Dutch Baby Evaporated Milk is “always fresh and dependable” which might suggest that the selling point of this product is its “freshness” (Dutch Baby). The logo of this product is a mom holding a baby with some cows in the background and the brand’s name is the Dutch Baby (Dutch Baby). It might seem like the evaporated milk can, being the budget-friendly substitute for fresh milk, is for the baby only. However, as Bentley argues in her book Inventing Baby Food that while baby food companies were already making huge profits at midcentury, they were still not stratified, hence they promoted their product as an “efficient convenience food for all ages” (65). We can also see the new marketing strategy in this specific advertisement. There are coffee, tea, cake, smoothie, and other confections surrounding the evaporated milk can which can be seen as implying to their audiences that evaporated milk is an important ingredient for not just baby food, but other drinks or food for adults as well (Dutch Baby). Besides in Chinese traditional belief, food for baby is safer and more “dependable” than adult food, which is another selling point of this product in the advertisement (Dutch Baby).

Despite all the reasons I have mentioned above, the biggest reason for evaporated milk taking over the fresh milk in making HK-style milk tea and Yuen Yueng is its relatively cheap price (“Tea Cafés” 316). Since most Hong Kongers were working class, people replaced fresh milk with evaporated milk for the latter being much more affordable at that time (“Tea Cafés” 316). Although the use of evaporated milk was originally for an economical purpose, the “creamy” and “smooth” taste became one of the characteristics of Yuen Yueng and HK-style milk tea which helps them to differentiate from the subtle flavor of British milk tea (“Tea Cafés” 316).

As a result, the improved Hong Kong milk tea and Yuen Yeung were well accepted and soon became an indispensable part of caa caan teng (“Brand”).

Yuen Yeung in the Post-Colonial Era (After 1997)

Yuen Yeung — From Rags to Riches

In one transcript of an interview with the famous Hong Kong actor Francis Ng Chun-yu posted in the “My Hong Kong” section of South China Morning Post on Feb. 18th, 2001 by Anita Lam, Ng shows his love towards Yuen Yeung (Lam 75). When asked “what do you love about Hong Kong after you’ve been away,” Ng answered “food in Hong Kong” and said that his favorite is “Yin Yang — a local milk tea with coffee” (Lam 75). The reporter translated Yuen Yeung into Yin Yang. Nevertheless, they are both 鸳鸯 just using different romanization systems. This piece was published in 2001, four years after the handover of Hong Kong. Thus, it allows us to catch a glimpse of Ng’s living experience in Hong Kong after the transition of Hong Kong sovereignty from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China. It acknowledges that Yuen Yeung is a local beverage and indicates that Yuen Yeung, invented during the British rule, is still loved by Hong Kong people even from the upper class after the handover. Besides, more and more younger and better-educated Hong Kongers consume Yuen Yeung and other unique Hong Kong food as a way of preserving Hong Kong heritage (Lu 261).

In conclusion, we can infer that Yuen Yeung as one of the iconic food of Hong Kong, is appreciated by all the social classes in the post-colonial period.

Yuen Yeung as Hong Kong Cultural Heritage

One of the unique characteristics of Yuen Yeung is the bottom-up pattern of its consumption. As mentioned before, Yuen Yeung was first a blue-collar drink for its cheap price and intense taste to help the workers stay mentally and physically energized (Tam). Over time, not just the working class enjoyed this delicious drink, it was enjoyed by all classes of Hong Kong. In 2014, Yuen Yeung, along with egg tarts, milk tea, and pineapple buns, was officially declared as Hong Kong’s intangible cultural heritage by the Hong Kong government for the traditional craftsmanship involved in the making process (“ The First Intangible Cultural Heritage ” ). Until then, Yuen Yeung was acknowledged as a part of the Hong Kong culture not only by the citizens but also by the authority.

The Symbolism of Yuen Yeung

Yuen Yeung: the Duck and the Drink

So why does the beverage Yuen Yeung named after the mandarin duck? Yuen Yeung 鸳鸯 is the combination of two words, whereas Yuen 鸳 is the beautiful male mandarin duck, Yueng 鸯 is the relatively plain female mandarin duck. It is believed in Chinese culture that mandarin ducks mate for life (Koon). Back in the Tang dynasty, a famous poet Zhaolin Lu writes [people] "only envy mandarin ducks, not the immortals” to express his admiration for faithful love (line 10). Ever since Yuen Yeung became the symbol of undivided love (Koon). Even though the debate over the reason why coffee with milk tea is named after the mandarin duck still carries on, I believe it is because Yuen Yueng manage to find a balance between two contrary drinks: coffee and milk tea. Because coffee is very bitter, whereas milk tea is sweet. The process can be quite trying, yet finding the perfect combination is a symbol of harmony for life. Just like Hong Kongers themselves, having the identity of British and Chinese subjects at the same time during the 20th century, they managed to find their own path of thriving.

Yuen Yeung and Hong Kong Resilience

Achille Mbembe argues in the book Necropolitics that “colonial occupation itself consisted in seizing, delimiting, and asserting control over a geographical area— of writing a new set of social and spatial relations on the ground” (79). Indeed, being colonized by another country not only lead to changes in geographical level, but also in social and cultural level. Hong Kong, as an example of being the colony of Britain, not only had its space being occupied, the culture was overwritten as well. However, just like India, Hong Kong, once a Britain colony, didn’t give up and sought to establish its own identity. As Arjun Appadurai argues in “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India”, cuisine can also become one of the representations of cultural identity (3). With that in mind, one way to show Hong Kong people’s identity is through local food in the context of colonization, which also reveals the relationships of “the past and the present” (“Food, Memories and Identities”, 205). Therefore Hong Kong people differentiated themselves from the mainland Chinese and the English through the trajectory of food (“Southeast Asian Chinese Food” 222). Being influenced by the British culture, Hong Kong people wanted to mimic their famous drink — milk with tea (“Tea Cafés” 316). However, British milk tea was very expensive for the Hong Kong common citizens for mainly two reasons. First, it was usually served in a fancy hotel (“Tea Cafés” 316). Second, the fresh milk used in British milk tea was very expensive, since at that point China mainland didn’t even have a milk industry (“Tea Cafés” 316; Goldthread). Creative Hong Konger used the evaporated milk instead which surprisingly contributes to the “creamy” taste of it (“Tea Cafés” 316). Besides, the majority of Hong Kong local citizens were working class post-1952, they need a beverage to refresh their body and mind (“Brand”). As a result, innovative Hong Konger invented the drink, Yuen Yeung, by mixing coffee with HK-style milk tea (“Brand”). It is surely incredible to see how Hong Kong people used their intelligence and creativity to thrive under British rule and build their own identity to differentiate themselves after 1952. Thus, the tasty and iconic beverage: Yuen Yeung, is more than just a refreshing drink, it undoubtedly is the resemblance of Hong Konger’s resilience, creativity, and empowerment.