Cereal Milk Tea Bags

I often get asked for my suggestions on kid friendly teas.  Harney & Sons’ Birthday Tea, Elmwood Inn’s Blueberry Infusion, or even Teavana’s Chocolate Bananas Foster are all great choices for children.  Slightly sweet and non-caffeinated always work best for the kiddos.

Once you taste today’s recipe, it will soon become the next tea that you add to your kid friendly tea list.  Ironically, it’s the most un-tea like tea blend that you will ever find.  And unlike the other blends I’ve mentioned, you can’t buy this tea–you actually have to make it!

Any idea what type of tea it is?  That’s right…Cereal Milk Tea!!

A few years back, when I was rummaging through my fresh copy of David Chang and Peter Meehan’s Momofuku Cookbook, I remember thinking how cereal milk was one of the most fascinating and creative culinary ideas ever.  Cereal Milk Panna Cotta?  I’m there!

For a tea lover and cookbook enthusiast like myself, there is no better way to pay homage to Momofuku’s Cereal Milk craze then by creating some Cereal Milk Tea Bags.

The kid’s cereal variety packs are perfect for this project, because you can get a variety of flavors without having to buy so many boxes of cereal.  With these boxes, we also create tea tags which are attached with some multicolored baker’s twine.

You can also use some clear cello bags to package up your tea treats if you plan on giving them out as gifts or favors.  These days, baker’s twine comes in so many bright and beautiful colors and in smaller amounts, so it’s fun to play around with how your finished tea bags will look.

What will make your Cereal Milk Tea Bags memorable and unique is if you pay special attention to the tags that you create with the punch out tool.  I like to choose iconic sections of the cereal box designs so that the finished tea bags look uniform and recognizable.

It’s amazing how an ingredient like kiddy breakfast cereal can somehow become a gourmet item in the hands of a few imaginative chefs.  I know that there are some of you out there saying:  “Hey!  Cereal Tea isn’t really tea!”  You’re partly right…this post has nothing to do with our much-loved Camella Sinensis plant, but it does have to do with the way we’ve come to regularly enjoy tea in clever little filter bags.

Not to worry, I’ll get back to those beautiful green leaves in no time.  For now, I’m going to sit back and relax with an unsophisticated and comforting cup of warm Cereal Milk Tea.  You should do the same!

Cereal Milk Tea

Ingredients:

cereal of your choice

1 cup of milk for each Cereal Tea Bag

Equipment:

tea filters (I used size 2 T-Sacs)

bakers twine, cut into 8″ pieces

mortar & pestle

scissors

stapler

Tablespoon

tag punch (I used 1 13/16″)

thumb tack

cello treat bags (3″ x 4″, if you want to wrap the finished tea bags)

clear tape (if you want to wrap the finished tea bags)

Directions:

1.)  Gather your tools and equipment for making the tea bags.

2.)  Use mortar & pestle to grind down 2 Tbsp of cereal.

3.)  Pour ground cereal into the tea filter.

4.)  Fold down top/unfilled portion of the tea bag.

5.)  Fold right and left corners of the folded tea bag down to the center vertical line of tea bag to form a triangle top tip.

6.)  Fold tip of triangle down to center of edges folded in previously.

7.)  Use stapler to attach twine to folded side of tea bag.  Staple twine to bag about a half centimeter below the top edge of the tea bag.

8.)  Use the punch out tool to create a tag from the cereal box.

9.  Use a thumb tack to create a small hole in the top of the tag.

10.)  Use the thumb tack to push the twine into the tag hole.  Leaving a few inches between the tea bag and the tag, tie a knot in the twine on the uncolored side of the tag, then snip off excess string with scissors.

11.)  Your tea bag is done!  Place each tea bag in a clear cello bag and tape up if you want a more finished look.

12.)  Dunk each Cereal Tea Bag in 1 cup of warm milk, then let steep for several minutes and enjoy!

 

 

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bonnieeng

Thank you Nicole! I’ve officially been added to the Bloggers Roundtable at the Tea Expo!! So excited–see you there! =)

Reply
Ngan R.

I’ve never heard of such a thing as cereal milk tea! This must be quite fun for the kiddos. Love the crafty project!

Reply
Lokness

These tea bags look sooo cute! My favorite has to be the cocoa rice krispies. That chocolate milk is always the best. Thanks for sharing a creative idea! I am all kids would love them.

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bonnieeng

Thank you Patty!! Yes, there probably isn’t a real name for it because it’s really pretty basic–just cereal and milk! Hah! =)

Reply
onel

OMG genius!! Just a question, do we just drink the milk or do we also eat the crushed cereal inside the bag?

Reply
bonnieeng

Hey there! Thank you so much! Probably just drink the milk that’s been cereal tea bag steeped. The cereal in the tea bag will likely have become mush after a few minutes…hope this helps! 😉

Reply
JayNine

Now thats it, I’m convinced: You are an absolute Genius! My children are going to Freak out! This might be the way I even get my 5 year old to “take milk, with her cereal”–LOL. Thank you so much for this super creative clever tutorial! I am so glad I found your blog! Oh, through Craft Gawker btw. Thank you again.

Reply
bonnieeng

Yay!! Hope your kids will enjoy their milk more now! =) Not a hard project, you just need a few tools and some cereal that your little ones love. I like to think that you don’t get the full-on sugar rush that you would by actually eating the cereal and the milk. 😉 Thank you!

Reply
jessica

and here i thought i was the only one who enjoyed drinking the cereal milk almost more than the cereal. i LOVE this!

Reply
Bonnie Eng

Thanks so much Jessica!! No, you definitely aren’t the only one!! 😉 This was a funny little post that I did on a whim, and luckily it enjoyed a lot of positive feedback. Thanks for stopping by and dropping me a line!

Reply
Steffen

Hey Bonnie,

first of all thanks or this blog post and thanks for your amazing blog! (so many great recipes i want to copy ^^)

I had the crazy idea of creating a cereal tea advent calendar for my gf and since it’s almost time to finally start this project i was always kind of unsure about the amount of pulverized cereal i have to put into the bag since they’re so different in shape, weight and size…
Is 2 Tbsp uncrushed cereal THE go to amount for every cereal – whatever size, weight, shape the have – to make a tea bag that is able to flavor a whole cup of milk? (just asking, ’cause in this instruction it looks like he uses the whole box (which would be about 30g or each bag: http://www.instructables.com/id/Cereal-Tea/?ALLSTEPS)
🙂

Reply
Bonnie Eng

Hey Steffen! Thanks for your patience! So if you want full flavor (i.e. more sweet), like when you eat cereal and drink the milk after, then honestly the more cereal you use the better. For my taste, a whole box is too much. It’s really a matter of how sweet your gf likes her milk “tea.” Those cereals are generally pretty sweet, so I do 2 Tbsp because it gives people the ability to adjust how much flavor they want. If they want the milk sweeter, they can just add another tea bag (like the way you drink real tea). For your advent calendar idea, perhaps use the next size up for the tea filter (a size 3 or 4 will hold more). If you use the larger sizes of T-Sac, all the folding instructions will remain the same. Hope this helps! 🙂

Reply
Steffen

Hey Bonnie,

thank you SOOOOO much for your reply! 🙂
It really helps a little knowing the amount of cereal depends on taste and probably on how much milk you’ll use. 🙂

I just made my first tea bag and suprisingly 2 Tbsp of either plain ol’ cornflakes or a more bulkier cereal (kosmostars) were more than enough to fill the bag almost completely (at least the ones i’m using or rather the ones i bought ^^)

Thanks again! 🙂

Reply
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