Some milk teas are delicious, some are unique, and some are super pretty. Blue milk tea with matcha pudding is all of those. This perfect butterfly pea flower and matcha tea pair is easy to make at home with only a few basic ingredients and will undoubtedly satisfy your sweet tooth. Plus, it's super pretty.
What is Blue Milk Tea?
Blue milk tea is a milk tea made from butterfly pea or clitoria ternatea flowers. It originates in Asia and has a deep, intense blue colour. But these flowers are more than just pretty – they have such a unique flavour profile that you can match them with dozens of different ingredients. They are also known for their colour changing ability and go really well with milk. What more could a tea lover ask from an herbal tea? Butterfly pea flower covers pretty much all the must haves to become every tea lover's favourite tisane.
Is Blue Milk Tea Healthy?
Besides flavour and colour, clitoria ternatea flowers may provide many health benefits. Studies suggest butterfly pea flower may improve cognitive performance and provide antioxidant, antidiabetic, antimicrobial and inti-inflammatory activity (1). Butterfly pea flower tea is caffeine free, but if you add caffeinated ingredients such as matcha, you will add caffeine too. If you avoid adding too much sugar or replace sugar with a calorie-free alternative, it will contain fewer calories.
What Makes Matcha Pudding is a Perfect Topping?
Butterfly pea flower and matcha are not a common pair, although there are several blends that combine them.
Butterfly pea flower is also available as a powder, and can easily be blended with other powders to make lattes or smoothies.
What makes these two a perfect pair are:
- potential benefits,
- flavour and
- colour.
Butterfly pea flower is often consumed for its potential calming properties and matcha contains antioxidants and L-theanine, an amino acid that may provide a calming effect as well. With its neutral and light floral flavour, blue tea goes really well with sweet and grassy matcha. If you haven't tried it yet, you will be surprised how delicious they are together.
Ingredients for Making Blue Milk Tea
Butterfly pea flowers: These beautiful flowers are available from many tea shops and Amazon. When choosing the perfect butterfly pea flower tea, look for flowers that are blue rather than purple. Lower quality tea will often have a less intense blue colour.
Milk: The best type of milk for this milk tea is either a coffee creamer or half-and-half. You will need only one tablespoon to get a beautiful milky tea. Alternatively, use a vegan coffee creamer.
Sugar: While flavourful, this milk tea is still gentle. Regular white sugar has a neutral taste that won't influence other flavours in this tea.
Almond extract: A few drops of almond extract will really elevate this drink. You can replace it with regular vanilla or some other flavours, such as coconut.
Steps for Making Blue Milk Tea
Making the tea: Brew your tea first. Use about 15 flowers per 250 ml of boiling water and steep for 5 minutes. You can steep it longer because it won't become bitter. If you are using high quality unbroken flowers, you won't even need a strainer or an infuser – you can simply remove flowers using a spoon or a fork.
Adding sugar and extract: Once the tea is ready, remove the flowers and add sugar and almond extract. Stir until dissolved. Taste it to see if you want to make it sweeter.
Assembling the drink: Pour the tea into a serving glass and add ice. Wait for a couple of minutes before adding matcha pudding. Pudding will melt in hot drink, so let it cool first. Once you added pudding, add a tablespoon of coffee creamer and stir.
Ingredients for Making Matcha Pudding
Matcha powder: Always use fresh and vibrant matcha for making matcha pudding. Your powder shouldn't be bitter, and it should have a vibrant green colour. Both culinary and ceremonial grades are good options. We used Korean matcha powder, which has a beautiful intense colour and a deep flavour.
Sugar: Regular white sugar is the best option for making matcha pudding if you want to preserve the flavour of matcha tea.
Milk: Regular whole milk is the best for making puddings. It will give a creamier texture and much better flavour than semi-skimmed or skimmed milk.
Corn-starch: Corn-starch is the key ingredient that will thicken hot milk into a pudding. For this recipe, use a bit more than you'd normally used to make pudding easy to cut and preserve shape in your drink.
Steps for Making Matcha Pudding
Prepare matcha tea base: While this step is not essential and you can replace it by simply sifting matcha powder in corn-starch and making sure it's fully dissolved; it may give a slightly richer colour and it will make sure there are no lumps. Once the milk is hot, simply take a few tablespoons and mix it with matcha powder in a clean small bowl.
Dissolve corn-starch in milk: Never add corn-starch directly into hot milk. This step is crucial in making a homemade pudding. Always dissolve it in a few tablespoons of cold milk first.
Heating the milk and adding matcha and corn-starch: Heat the milk but don't let it boil. Stir in dissolved matcha powder and mix well. Make sure it's completely clump free and blended. Then add dissolved corn-starch while continuously stirring.
Chill it: Pour the pudding into a small square container and let it set in the fridge for an hour or two.
Variations
Butterfly pea flower tea is very gentle, so it goes well with many other ingredients.
Coconut blue milk tea: Instead of a regular creamer, you can use canned coconut milk and replace almond extract with vanilla or coconut extract.
Brown sugar boba pearls: If you don't have time to make matcha pudding, you can use pre-made brown sugar boba pearls instead. They will taste just as delicious.
White chocolate pudding: Replace matcha pudding with white chocolate pudding, and almond extract with ½ teaspoon of rum or rum flavouring.
Super creamy tea: Add 2-3 extra tablespoons of creamer if you want an extra milky tea.
Blue Milk Tea with Matcha Pudding
Equipment
- Serving glass
- Cup for brewing
- Matcha bowl or regular small bowl
- saucepan
- Matcha sifter or kitchen sifter
- electric hand frother
- Small bowl
- Square container
Ingredients
For Matcha Pudding
- 1 heaped teaspoon of matcha powder
- 300 ml of cold milk
- 3 tablespoons of cold milk
- 27 grams of fine corn-starch about 3 tablespoons
- 1-2 tablespoons of white sugar
For Blue Iced Tea
- 250 ml of water
- 15 butterfly pea flowers
- 1-2 teaspoons of sugar
- 10 ml of coffee creamer (2 teaspoons)
- Ice
- 100 grams of matcha pudding
- ¼-1/3 teaspoon of almond extract
Instructions
For Matcha Pudding
- Sift matcha powder into a clean and dry bowl.
- Add corn-starch into another clean bowl. Add 3 tablespoons of cold milk and mixwell.
- Add the rest of the milk and 1-2 tablespoons of sugar into a saucepan. Turn on the heat to medium-low.
- When the milk is hot but not boiling, take 3 tablespoons of milk and add to matcha and froth it with a hand frother. Keep simmering the milk on medium-low.
- Pour matcha into hot milk and stir. There should be no clumps or visible tea powder particles.
- Add dissolved corn-starch and stir. It will start thickening immediately. When it reaches a desired texture, remove from the heat, and immediately pour into a clean square container. Let it set in the fridge.
- Once set, cut it into small cubes.
For Assembling the Blue Milk Tea
- Bring fresh water to a boil.
- Steep 15 flower in 250 ml of water for 5 minutes.
- Remove the flowers and add sugar and almond extract. Stir until dissolved.
- Fill a serving glass with ice and add tea. Wait for a couple of minutes until it cools.
- Add matcha pudding and a tablespoon of coffee creamer.
- Stir and serve.