Dunkin'
Dunkin' Iced Coffee Copycat Recipe
Hot-brewed at double strength, chilled fast, and sweetened with syrup rather than granules. Five minutes plus chilling.
How to Make Black Canyon Thai Iced Coffee at Home
Oliang: Very Strong, Very Sweet, and Layered on Purpose
The layered glass, and the two milks that make it work.
AI-generated illustration created for food.fast. It is not photographic evidence of a prepared batch.
Thai iced coffee - oliang - is one of the great hot-climate drinks and it is built on a principle that is worth understanding beyond this recipe: two different milks doing two different jobs.
Sweetened condensed milk goes in first, stirred into the hot coffee so it dissolves completely. It is the sweetener and it provides the body.
Evaporated milk is poured over the ice at the end. It is unsweetened, thinner, and it does three things: it gives the layered look as it sinks through, it adds a creamy top note, and it takes the edge off what would otherwise be a cloyingly sweet drink.
Use one and not the other and it does not work. Condensed milk alone is syrupy; evaporated alone is thin and barely sweet.
How this page shows its working
The method gives quantities, timings and observable cues rather than asking you to guess. The 4 cases in If it goes wrong explain likely causes and corrective action; 1 ingredient note explains choices that materially affect the result.
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The coffee, and what traditional oliang actually contains
Traditional Thai coffee - oliang powder - is not pure coffee. It is a blend that typically includes roasted corn, soybean, sesame seed and sometimes cardamom alongside the coffee, roasted very dark. That is why authentic oliang has a distinctly smoky, nutty, slightly grainy character that pure coffee does not.
It is sold in Thai and Southeast Asian grocers, usually in a large bag, and it is genuinely worth seeking out if you want the real thing.
Without it, the closest approach is a very dark espresso roast brewed at double strength, with a pinch of ground cardamom. That gets you a drink that is recognisably in the same family.
Whichever you use, brew it far stronger than you think. A tall glass of ice is 200 ml of water arriving in the drink, plus two milks. Normal-strength coffee disappears entirely. The recipe below uses double strength and it is the minimum.
The pinch of salt, which is in the traditional version
A very small amount of salt is standard in Thai iced coffee and in Thai iced tea, and it is doing the same job as the salt in a coffee syrup - suppressing bitterness and making the sweetness read as rounder. An eighth of a teaspoon across two glasses is below the threshold where you would taste it as salt.
How to make it, step by step
Make it
-
Brew the coffee at double strength
Twice the usual dose. It should be uncomfortably strong to drink on its own.
About 5 min -
Stir the condensed milk into the hot coffee
While it is still hot, until completely dissolved. Condensed milk will not dissolve into a cold liquid - it sits at the bottom of the glass in a lump.
TipThis is the single most common mistake with this drink.About 2 min -
Fill the glasses completely with ice
A full glass, not half. More ice melts more slowly because the greater mass keeps the whole volume colder.
About 1 min -
Pour the coffee over, then float the evaporated milk
Coffee first. Then pour the cold evaporated milk slowly over the back of a spoon held just above the surface - it will spread and then sink through in white ribbons.
About 2 min
Thai iced tea, which is the same technique
The other half of the tradition, and structurally identical.
Brew four tablespoons of Thai tea mix - a heavily spiced black tea, orange from food colouring, sold alongside the oliang powder - in two cups of boiling water for five minutes. Strain.
Stir in four tablespoons of condensed milk while hot. Pour over a full glass of ice. Float four tablespoons of evaporated milk over the back of a spoon.
The colour is the striking part - bright orange tea with white milk sinking through it - and the technique is exactly the same.
Without the mix, strong Assam or Ceylon with a quarter teaspoon each of star anise, cardamom and a pinch of ground tamarind gets you close on flavour. The colour is food colouring and there is no substitute for it that is worth using.
Ways to change it once you have made it once
Thai iced tea
As set out above - the same technique with a spiced black tea.
Less sweet
Two tablespoons of condensed milk and an extra of evaporated. Closer to how it is often drunk in Thailand than the export version.
Dairy free
Coconut condensed milk and coconut evaporated milk, both widely available. The coconut suits the drink and is arguably an improvement.
What went wrong, and how to fix it
Each entry names a likely cause as well as a correction, so the advice remains useful when equipment, ingredients or batch size differ.
Condensed milk at the bottom of the glass
- Why it happened
- Stirred into cold coffee.
- What to do
- Dissolve it in the coffee while it is hot, before the ice.
Weak and watery
- Why it happened
- Normal-strength coffee.
- What to do
- Double strength at minimum. A full glass of ice is 200 ml of water.
No layers
- Why it happened
- The evaporated milk was poured too fast, or was not cold.
- What to do
- Cold milk, poured slowly over the back of a spoon.
Too sweet
- Why it happened
- Condensed milk varies and three tablespoons is generous.
- What to do
- Two tablespoons, and an extra tablespoon of evaporated milk.
Questions people actually ask about this recipe
What is oliang?
Thai iced coffee, traditionally made from a blend that includes roasted corn, soybean and sesame alongside very dark coffee, sweetened with condensed milk.
Why two kinds of milk?
Condensed milk sweetens and thickens and goes in hot; evaporated milk is poured over the ice for the layers and to cut the sweetness.
Why does my condensed milk sink to the bottom?
It will not dissolve in cold liquid. Stir it into the hot coffee before the ice.
Can I use normal coffee?
Yes, brewed at double strength and as dark a roast as you can get. Traditional oliang powder is worth seeking out if there is a Thai grocer near you.
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