Hong Kong’s growing love for plant-based milk

Back in 2019, Oatly unveiled a campaign featuring a new Chinese character that added the radical for “plant” to the character for “milk”. Four years later, plant-based milk – or mylk – has arrived in Hong Kong in a big way.

Unlike soy milk, which has been a staple of Chinese diets for thousands of years, the new mylk varieties are not separate entities of their own but rather dairy substitutes. Punam Chopra, the founder of Hong Kong organic food store and café SpiceBox Organics says, “As the community learns about the dairy industry and what over consumption of dairy could do to their health, consumers have been seeking a more plant-heavy way of living.” 

This observation is supported by an Oatly study from 2019, which found that more than 70% of Hong Kongers are interested in switching to mylk if they had more information about its benefits. 

Soy milk was just the beginning

While big coffee chains like Pacific Coffee and Starbucks have normalized mylk as a dairy alternative in coffee or tea, small businesses are upping the stakes by focusing exclusively on plant-based milk. One shining example is vegan bakery and café LN Fortunate Coffee, located in the popular weekend neighbourhood of Sai Ying Pun. Since 2016, it has been a pioneer in the mylk movement by tapping into elements that are already present in Chinese culture. The Buddhist-influenced business has been serving soy lattes infused with flavors like rose, hazelnut, and matcha alongside its popular vegan egg waffles. 

Janice Leung Hayes, founder of sustainable business network Honestly Green and an advisory member of Zero Foodprint Asia, explains: “In Chinese food culture, there’s always been a subculture of vegetarianism, so cutting out dairy is a concept that’s easily understood.” Leung Hayes also points out that as modern lifestyles begin to have a negative effect on Hong Kongers’ health, they’re more likely to seek out alternative diets.

For the co-founder of Clean Coffee & Laundry, Cynthia Lok, the health benefits are obvious: “[Our customers’] feedback is that they feel less bloated and full after drinking oat mylk versus dairy milk.” The charming laundromat in Sheung Wan, which stocks only eco-friendly detergents and softeners, doubles as a self-serve café’, where oat mylk is the default, and dairy is available for an extra charge. It also uses coffee beans that have been specifically formulated and roasted to complement oat mylk’s flavor and texture. Lok says that almost all of the café’s customers have chosen to switch to oat mylk after sampling what has been hailed as Hong Kong’s best oat mylk latte or the shop’s dark-horse contender sesame latte, a heady mixture of sesame and oat mylk. 

Changing Hong Kong’s beverage culture

Another shop that has a very focused mylk menu is tea shop NUTTEA, whose slogan “Nuts about mylk, not about milk” doesn’t shy away from making the source of its passion clear. The shop creates its proprietary mylk blend in-house by roasting walnuts, hazelnuts, cashews, almonds, and macadamia nuts before cold-pressing them. The diversity of its offerings – which range from fruit-based nut drinks to oolong, jasmine and earl grey teas topped with a dollop of nut mylk cream – shows how versatile and rich nut mylk can be as an ingredient.

However, Mother Pearl has taken the biggest step in integrating mylk into the local beverage culture by putting their own spin on beloved drinks. Bubble tea, Hong Kong-style milk tea and yuen yeung (a coffee and tea mix served in Hong Kong’s classic cha chaan teng teahouses, beloved by filmmakers such as Wong Kar Wai) are prepared with oat cashew, almond or oat hemp mylk and crowned with a thick layer of rich, creamy rice or coconut froth. The flavors and ingredients of Mother Pearl’s drinks also invoke the typical beverages enjoyed by Hong Kongers, with ginger, taro, osmanthus and even black rice, considered so nutritious that it was reserved only for royalty in ancient China.

The shop also makes its mylk in-house minus any preservatives, additives or refined sugar. With its advisors including Peggy Chan, founder of now-closed fine-dining vegetarian restaurant Grassroots Pantry and a key figure in Hong Kong’s sustainable eating movement, it’s no surprise that Mother Pearl takes a serious approach to waste reduction, even upcycling the scraps produced by the mylk-making process into sweet desserts.

Hong Kong’s plant-based future

While the mylk movement seems to be solidly underway in Hong Kong, many of its proponents believe that it’s only the beginning. According to Chopra, “There are still many types of plant-based milks that aren’t well known in Hong Kong, for example hemp milk, or cowpea milk. It is only a matter of time when other varieties catch on, and the demand will only increase.”

Leung Hayes acknowledges that Hong Kongers are used to the taste and texture of dairy milk, and with its different nutritional content and lower price, dairy is more accessible than mylk at the moment. However, it’s not a big stretch to predict that once more varieties of mylk emerge and gain ground in groceries and restaurants, mylk will occupy an even larger space in Hong Kong culture and diets. 

Perhaps the day when the Chinese character “plant milk” will be featured prominently on a cha chaan teng laminated menu in a Wong Kar Wai film isn’t so far-fetched after all.

Ready to explore this exciting and eco-friendly café culture? Fly directly to Hong Kong with Thai Airways.