Thai iced tea on a hot day is hard to resist. By Thai iced tea, we are referring to the typical Thai iced milk tea, which is one of the most popular drinks in Thailand. Thai iced tea is delicious, it is cooling, rich and creamy. But how many calories are in Thai iced tea? Find out more in this article as we break the ingredient down and compare Thai iced tea calories to those from other beverages.
Table of Contents
Typical ingredients for Thai tea
In the previous article, we talked about the recipe and ingredients that go into various types of Thai iced tea. Now, let’s do a quick review of ingredients and how much of them we actually put into the drink.
We made the tea following a recipe from ThaiJobGov which include:
- Water: 1 cup about 200 ml
- Tea mix: 2 tablespoons ~(10 to 15 grams)
- Sugar: 1 tablespoon (~12 grams)
For the milky version, add:
- Condensed milk: 2 tablespoons (30 grams)
- Evaporated milk: 2.5 tablespoons (40 grams)
Thai iced tea calories
The answer is around 200 to 250 Calories per cup (roughly ~250 ml in size), but let’s check the breakdown and how we calculated this figure. Disclaimer: we will be using Calories in this article (with capital C), depending on where you are from, you may be more used to kcal – see clarification from USDA here.
Now that we have a full ingredient list, we circle back to our ingredient packaging in order to calculate the calories:
- ChaTraMue brand tea mix: a total of 280 Calories for 400g (0.7 calories per 1 g)
- Carnation brand condensed milk: 630 Calories for 180g (3.5 calories per 1 g)
- Carnation brand evaporated milk: 500 Calories for 405g (1.2 calories per 1 g)
- Kitchen sugar: generally about 4 Calories per 1 g
So how many calories are there in Thai iced tea?
- Tea mix: 15 x 0.7 = 10.5 Calories
- Condensed milk: 30 x 3.5 = 105.0 Calories
- Evaporated milk: 40 x 1.2 = 48 Calories
- Sugar: 12 x 4 = 48.0 Calories
That’s it, we are looking at about 210 to 220 Calories for the cup of Thai iced tea that we made.
If you are looking to make “diet” version with lower calories at home then cutting the condense milk will help considerably!
How are Thai iced tea calories compared to other drinks/treats?
Now that we know the calories count from one cup of the drink, let’s see what else you can eat/drink if you consume ~200 Calories?
- Mcdonald vanilla cone: 200 Calories
- Starbucks expresso Frappuccino (no cream): 210 Calories
- KFC egg tart (1 pc): 166 Calories
- ½ of OREO Blizzard Mini: 190 (380/2) Calories
- 5 cups of coconut water: 220 (44*5) Calories
As you can see, a cup of Thai milk tea has as many calories as a small treat/dessert. So if you are planning to have a dessert after your meal, you may opt for fresh coconut water or roasted coconut (only 44 Calories per cup) or plain water!
Does Thai iced tea have a high amount of calories?
As a drink, yes it has many calories, equivalent to a small dessert. So when you drink Thai iced (milk) tea, you might want to skip your dessert for a healthier diet.
However, if you consume Thai iced tea not during your meal, it can help to sate your hunger for a while given that it has a considerable amount of energy. Alternatively, you can combine both tea and desserts by having Thai tea desserts!
For those who are looking to lose weight or maintain healthy blood sugar levels, you need to consume Thai iced tea in moderation (Also lets not forget that all tea contain a certain level of caffeine content).
Learn more about Thailand in our other blog posts: