Here is the eye opener bro. The tea in teh tarik is zero calories. The 130 calories are entirely condensed milk and sugar. People sip three or four of these a day without thinking and that is 400 to 500 calories of pure liquid sugar that does not fill you up at all.
Drink calories are the most wasted calories in the Malaysian diet. They taste good for ten seconds and keep you full for zero minutes. If you do one thing for your waistline, swap your sweet drinks for kosong versions. Teh o kosong (tea, no milk, no sugar) is about 5 calories. Same caffeine, same ritual, none of the cost.
Here is the yearly math that changed my behaviour. Two teh tarik a day is 260 calories, times 365 days is about 95,000 calories a year. That is roughly 12kg of body fat, from tea. Nobody gets fat from one glass. People get fat from the automatic twice a day habit that runs for years.
Know your kopitiam menu codes and you can save calories without giving anything up. Teh c uses evaporated milk instead of condensed, around 100 calories. Teh c kosong is evaporated milk with no sugar, around 40. Teh o is tea with sugar only, around 60. Teh o kosong is the champion at basically 5. Same tea, five different prices for your waistline.
The reason drink calories are so dangerous is that they do not register. Liquid sugar does not trip your fullness switch the way food does. Your body simply does not count the teh tarik, so you eat the same amount of food anyway, plus the 130.