Why Pink Grapefruit?

Pink grapefruit is not an ingredient you’ll often find in tea blends, but it is a perfect citrus for making refreshing drinks. With the zesty and sweet flavour and light bitterness, it gives a more unique flavour than other citruses. Besides, there’s a pretty orange-pink colour too. And lastly, being a citrus, pink grapefruit will change the colour of blue pea tea into purple.  

Why Butterfly Pea Flower?

Butterfly pea flower tea is a caffeine-free tea with a beautiful blue colour and a very neutral taste. You can make it with citruses and other fruits, or milk and chocolaty ingredients. It’s a unique herbal tea that’s worth having in your tea cupboard.

Ingredients for making a Pink Grapefruit & Butterfly Pea Flower Iced Tea

Pink Grapefruit: You’ll need ½ – 1 pink grapefruit for making a pink grapefruit juice, depending on how sweet you want your tea to be. We recommend using a whole grapefruit and diving the juice into 2 servings.

Butterfly Pea Flowers: Butterfly pea flowers are available as whole dried flowers and as a powder. Use whole flowers for this recipe. You’ll need 10-15 whole flowers per serving. With this tea, it’s quite important to choose quality over the price as some lower-quality flowers may not be as blue.

Sugar: Sugar is a must for this recipe. You’ll need 2-3 spoons of sugar for making a grapefruit juice. Use regular granulated white sugar.  

Steps for making a Pink Grapefruit & Butterfly Pea Flower Iced Tea

Make blue tea: Butterfly pea flower tea is super easy o brew. You’ll need a cup, freshly boiled water and dried butterfly pea flowers. You don’t need a strainer because flowers are big enough to remove them using a teaspoon or a fork. Steep it for 5 minutes at 95-100 degrees Celsius. Don’t worry if you over-steep it, it won’t become bitter.

Make grapefruit juice: While the tea is steeping, start preparing a sweetened grapefruit juice. Squeeze the juice first using a citrus squeezer, then use a kitchen strainer or a cheesecloth to remove all seeds and pulp. Then add it into a small saucepan and add sugar. Simmer on low heat while stirring, until sugar fully dissolves. Once ready (after about 4-5 minutes), pour it into a serving glass and add ice. Adding sugar in this step is a must if you want to achieve a layered look.

Add butterfly pea flower tea: Slowly (important!) pour the tea into the serving glass. Pour it directly on the ice. The ice will melt, but you can easily add more ice later. Don’t stir the tea. Once you serve it, you can stir it just enough to change the colour and adjust the sweetness, and even top up with more butterfly pea flower without losing the whole pink grapefruit layer.  

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Pink Grapefruit & Butterfly Pea Flower Iced Tea

Super tasty 2 layered caffeine free iced tea

Course Drinks

Keyword Butterfly Pea Flower, Iced Tea, Pink Grapefruit

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes minutes

Servings 1

Equipment

• saucepan
• cup
• Serving glass

Ingredients

• 200 ml of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice . 1 big grapefruit
• 2-3 tablespoons of sugar 3 is better, but the juice will be sweet. If youlike less sweet teas, divide it into two servings
• 10-15 dried butterfly pea flowers
• 200 ml freshly boiled water to make blue tea
• Ice

Instructions

• Bring fresh water to a boil.
• Add butterfly pea flowers to a cup and add hot water. Steep for 5 minutes. Remove butterfly pea flowers from the cup.
• Squeeze grapefruit juice using a citrus squeezer and use a cheesecloth or a kitchen strainer to remove all seeds and pulp.
• Add grapefruit juice to a saucepan and add sugar. Simmer on lot heat until sugar dissolves for about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it cool for a couple of minutes.
• Pour grapefruit juice into a serving glass.
• Add ice.
• Slowly pour blue tea into the serving glass, straight onto ice, avoiding direct contact with grapefruit juice.
• Add more ice if needed.
• Serve with a straw.

The post Pink Grapefruit & Butterfly Pea Flower Iced Tea appeared first on All That Tea.

Learn what is butterfly pea tea and how to make this delicious boba tea at home.  

What is butterfly pea tea?

Butterfly pea tea or a blue tea is tea made from dried flowers of Clitoria ternatea plant. When brewed, these flowers give a beautiful blue infusion that’s unlike any other tea. While these flowers have a quite intense scent that may not appeal to all tea drinkers, they have a quite neutral taste. Plus, they are really versatile and go well with either milk or citruses. But what’s really special about blue tea is that once you change the pH value by adding citruses, the colour will change into purple. The more acidity you add, the more purple the colour will be.

Butterfly pea flowers are caffeine free, which makes them perfect for making refreshing summer drinks.

Ingredients for making Butterfly Pea Tea Boba

Butterfly pea flowers: Butterfly pea flowers are sold in tea shops and Amazon. However, not all are the same. With this ingredient, it really pays off to choose quality over price. Lower quality flowers may not always produce a beautiful blue colour.

Pomegranate: Although you can use a store-bought sugar free pomegranate juice, we recommend making it yourself. You’ll only need 3 tablespoons of fresh pomegranate seeds, a blender and a cheesecloth to strain it.

Lime: Fresh lime juice will add more complexity and distinct zestiness. It’s less sour than lemon, so don’t use lemons instead. Lychee popping boba: Popping boba pearls are available from many Asian stores and go super nice with this drink. Popping pearls are filled with liquid and will burst ones you bite into them. They are a wonderful topping for refreshing boba drinks. You can use pomegranate or raspberry popping pearls instead of lychee.

Sugar: You will need to add a sweetener to balance out the zestiness. Regular granulated sugar will work the best with this drink. Dissolve it in the hot tea, before adding ice. Alternatively, use a lighter honey.

Steps for making the drink

Make the tea: Start with bringing fresh water to a boil. Use about 10-12 dried flowers per cup of water. You can add a bit more or a bit less water, depending on your serving glass. Steep it for 5-7 minutes, or until you achieve a beautiful blue colour. Strain the tea into a clean, empty serving glass. Since butterfly pea flowers are quite big and often unbroken, you can also simply remove them with a clean teaspoon or a fork. Add sugar now because it will dissolve easier in hot tea. Add lots of ice.  

Prepare pomegranate juice: Use blender to blend about 3 heaped tablespoons of pomegranate seeds. Strain the juice into a serving glass with butterfly pea flower tea. You will get about 5 teaspoons of pure pomegranate juice.

Add lime and pooping boba: Squeeze in lime juice and add popping boba pearls. Stir and serve.

Want more butterfly pea flower drink ideas? Check out this Iced Butterfly Pea Flower tea and Milky Butterfly Pea Boba with Matcha Pudding.

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Butterfly Pea Tea Boba with Popping Pearls Recipe

Super refreshing boba

Course Drinks

Keyword Blue Tea, Boba Tea, Butterfly Pea Flower, Pomigranate

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Servings 1

Equipment

• Kettle and a cup for brewing the tea
• Blender and a cheesecloth for pomegranate juice

Ingredients

• 12 dry butterfly pea flowers
• 1 cup of water
• 1 glass of ice
• 3 tablespoons of pomegranate seeds
• 2 teaspoons of sugar
• ½ lime
• 1-2 tablespoons of lychee popping boba

Instructions

• Bring fresh water to a boil.
• Steep butterfly pea flowers for 5-7 minutes in hot water.
• Strain the tea into a clean serving glass and add sugar. Stir until dissolved.
• Add ice.
• Blend 3 heaped tablespoons of pomegranate seeds in a blender. Strain the juice using a cheesecloth. Pour it into tea.
• Add lime juice.
• Add popping boba pearls.

The post Butterfly Pea Tea Boba with Lychee Popping Pearls – Super Refreshing! appeared first on All That Tea.

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.

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.

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Blue Milk Tea with Matcha Pudding

A must try beautiful milk tea with two types of tea

Course Drinks

Keyword Blue Tea, Boba Tea, Butterfly Pea Flower, Iced Tea, Matcha, Milk Tea

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

For matcha pudding 1 hour hour 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 25 minutes minutes

Servings 1

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.

Sources

(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6546959/

The post Blue Milk Tea with Matcha Pudding: The Perfect Spring Pair appeared first on All That Tea.

What is blue tea?

Blue tea is a butterfly pea flower tea is an herbal tea made from dried flowers of Clitoria ternatea, a tropical plant originating in Asia. Butterfly Pea plant has a beautiful blue flowers that are commonly used as a natural remedy or colourant. Beautiful blue colour comes from a group of pigments called anthocyanins (Source: UF/IFAS). Anthocyanins give colour to many fruits, vegetables and even Camellia sinensis purple tea, and may provide an antioxidant activity (Source: NIH). Blueberries, purple cabbage, chokeberries and bilberries are only some of the foods rich in this antioxidant.

Recently, blue tea has become available from many online tea shops and is becoming a common ingredient in herbal blends too. It’s also available from marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay.

The main reason behind its rising popularity in the western countries is not the potential health benefit, but the ability to change colour from deep midnight blue to purple.

Why is blue tea changing colour to purple?

This colour changing ability results from changing the pH value of the tea. When you add acidic lemon, the colour of the tea will change to purple. Try adding bicarbonate of soda into butterfly pea tea without lemon and it will turn green.

Tips for getting the most beautiful colour from butterfly pea flower:

• Buy dry flowers that have a bluish, rather than purplish colour and lighter instead of yellowish calyx.
• If your tea contains flowers with both blue and purple colour, separate them and use blue flowers only
• To intensify the midnight blue colour, add only 1-2 drops of lemon juice – not more
• To change the colour from midnight blue to purple, 4-5 drops of lemon juice will be enough

What does butterfly pea flower tea taste like?

Although the scent of blue tea is unique, the flavour is quite delicate. It has a light, herbaceous flavour that will blend well with many ingredients. It’s not an overwhelming tea. You can try it with different citruses or other herbs and flowers such as lemongrass, mint, or chamomile.

How to make frozen lemon ice cubes?

To make frozen lemon ice cubes, you will need an ice tray or a silicone mould, lemon and water. Don’t use pure lemon as it won’t freeze properly. You can mix it in a 1:1 ratio and freeze overnight. You may wonder why making lemon ice cubes instead of simply adding lemon juice. The answer is to delay the colour changing effect of your blue iced tea.

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Blue Iced Tea

Refreshing iced butterfly pea flower tea

Course Drinks

Keyword Blue Tea, Butterfly Pea Flower, Iced Tea

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Servings 1

Equipment

• 1 300 ml serving glass

Ingredients

• 10 whole butterfly pea flowers
• 200 ml of water
• 1 teaspoon of honey or simple syrup
• 1 glass of ice + 1-2 lemon ice cubes

Instructions

• Bring fresh water to a boil.
• Steep 10 blue flower in 200 ml of water for 3-5 minutes at 100 degrees Celsius.
• Strain the tea into a serving glass.
• Add honey and stir.
• Add ice.
• Wait a couple of minutes until it cools slightly, add lemon juice ice cubes and serve immediately.

The post How to make blue iced tea? + Why you need to serve it with frozen lemon juice appeared first on All That Tea.