How to Make Golden Milk Turmeric Tea

Turmeric is delicious any way you use it. Our favorite application for chilly evenings? Steeped in this creamy and spiced warm drink, the perfect accompaniment to a cozy night in.

My job often involves a lot of sugar, and regularly testing (and eating) slices of coconut cake, chocolate pie, and chocolate chip cookies can take its toll even on people with the biggest sweet tooth (uh, that would be me).

So although I'm always down to create a crazy new dessert (double decker pie, anyone?), when it comes to making a creamy hot drink to sip on a cozy night in, I'm usually looking for something a little less sugary than a mug of hot chocolate—something subtle but flavorful.

Milky turmeric tea hits all the right notes: the combination of coconut milk, turmeric, and ginger is refreshing, creamy, spiced, and just sweet enough for me. And thanks to some encouragement from my Epi Test Kitchen colleague Anna Stockwell, I've traded in the store-bought version for one that I can make at home.

Also called golden milk, creamy turmeric tea is made by steeping fresh turmeric and spices in milk. Instead of any actual tea, the base flavor is an intense turmeric infusion, which plays up the root's earthy, peppery flavor.

Similar in size and shape to ginger, except with a brownish-orange color, fresh turmeric is touted for its antioxidant, anti-bacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties. "It's become a poster child for medicinal herbs and spices," says Katie Cavuto, MS, RD, "because there is a a certain approachability to using it. It doesn’t have a super strong flavor, depending on how you prepare it, and there is so much research backing the medicinal properties." It's bright yellow in color and often used as a natural dye, so it's important you don't peel it while wearing your favorite white shirt.

The only problem is that fresh turmeric isn't always easy to find (and that it stains everything). So I first tried making the drink with almond milk and dried spices, including dried turmeric. It's a suitable substitution if you have the spices on hand, but I knew I'd get a punchier flavor if I used fresh ingredients.

For my next batch, I swapped the almond milk for coconut milk, used fresh ginger and turmeric, and whole spices. Wow, what a difference. The coconut milk added a slightly sweet flavor to the drink, and the fresh spices were much cleaner and brighter. This was a drink I could—and would—drink everyday.

In fact, in the end, the nutritional perks of turmeric simply became an added bonus, because the drink is so delicious—creamy, slightly sweet, and peppery from the ginger and spices—that I'd drink it regardless.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated as a part of our archive repair project.