Color Changing Butterfly Pea Flower Cocktail

This Butterfly Pea Flower Cocktail combines color changing magic blue tea with mojito inspired ingredients like fresh mint, lime and rum.

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A Magic Mojito color changing cocktail recipe that is easy to make and is sure to WOW your friends and family!

What are butterfly pea flowers

Butterfly pea flower comes from a flowering vine native to tropical Asia. Butterfly pea flowers are commonly used to make butterfly pea flower tea and other foods that change color naturally. Like rice, pasta, desserts, syrups and more.

The reason why foods with butterfly pea flower change color is due to pigments known as anthocyanins that change color based on how acidic or alkaline of an environment it is in.

Lemon and lime juice will turn butterfly pea tea into a gorgeous violet purple color.

Lower the ph even more, with something like tonic water, and the tea turns bright pink. You can even add hibiscus flowers or hibiscus tea to the butterfly pea tea to add delicious flavor and turn it a shade of jewel toned magenta.

Aside from the color effects butterfly pea flower tea benefits are claimed to be wide. Ranging from powerful anti-oxidative properties, stress reduction, hair health and even as a well known way to reduce brain fog.

But does butterfly pea flower taste good? eh. Not so much. Butterfly pea tastes mild, lightly floral and earthy, somewhat like a blue matcha.

Because the flavor is so mild butterfly pea flower makes a great addition to all different types of color changing drinks and butterfly pea cocktails.

Butterfly pea flower cocktail recipe

There are many ways to make cocktails with butterfly pea flower.

You can make a butterfly pea syrup. Or use the butterfly pea flowers to infuse liquor to make butterfly pea gin cocktails with butterfly pea flower infused gin like Empress 1908 Gin.

Or color changing vodka cocktails with butterfly pea flower vodka like Unicorn Vodka.

But my favorite way to use butterfly pea in drinks is to make and use butterfly pea tea as a base for differents drinks and butterfly pea flower cocktails.

Like this butterfly pea cocktail recipe that combines butterfly pea flower with delicious mojito inspired flavors of mint, rum and lime.

Ingredients

• Butterfly pea – Buy dried butterfly pea flowers online to mix your own loose leaf tea blends. Or substitute butterfly pea flower tea bags or even crushed butterfly pea flower powder. All readily available online. You can even find butterfly pea flower seeds to grow your own butterfly pea flower plant.
• Fresh mint leaves – butterfly pea flowers don’t have a lot of flavor on their own so the mint leaves add a necessary punch of flavor. Use fresh or dried spearmint. Or substitute spearmint tea bags or loose leaf mint tea. Just be mindful that different tea blends have different acidity levels. For example, green tea is slightly alkaline and will affect the overall color.
• Granulated sugar – Add granulated sugar to the tea while still hot and steeping to easily sweeten the butterfly pea tea before it cools. Feel free to substitute your favorite sweetener instead like raw sugar, simple syrup, stevia, honey, etc. But different sweeteners may affect the overall color based on their acidity.
• Lime juice- the most acidic of all citrus fruits, lime juice will result in the most dramatic color change when mixed with butterfly pea tea. You can also substitute different citrus juices like lemon juice, limeade, lemonade, orange juice, pineapple juice etc.
• Rum – clear white rum is the standard liquor of choice for classic mojitos. It also happens to be slightly acidic. Feel free to leave out the rum to easily make a color changing magic mojito mocktail. Or substitute with butterfly pea vodka or even butterfly pea flower gin.

Step by step instructions

1. Make a Color Changing Blue Butterfly Pea Tea that actually tastes good by combining hot water with butterfly pea flowers, mint leaves and sugar. Steep for 5 minutes then strain through a fine mesh strainer into an ice filled pitcher to cool. Store refrigerated for 24-72 hours.

2. When ready to serve pour blue tea into a tall glass filled with ice, leaving about an inch of room at the top.

3. Pour rum over ice, stir.
4. Layer on lime juice without stirring. To make neat layers slowly pour the limeade over the back of a spoon onto the sweet tea.

5. Serve with a spoon or straw and stir before enjoying.
6. Watch the magic color change happen in the glass right before your eyes and enjoy!

How to serve

Serve color changing butterfly pea flower cocktails layered with a long spoon or a straw so that the drink can be combined at the table before being enjoyed.

This mojito inspired cocktail is perfect served with a lime wheel and fresh mint to nod to the mojito inspired flavors. You can also include a few loose butterfly pea flower pieces to garnish.

Yield

This recipe yields one butterfly pea flower cocktail. But it can easily be turned into a big batch pitcher recipe.

A full batch of the blue tea makes 8 cups of sweet iced butterfly pea tea. Simply combine 4 cups of cold butterfly pea tea with 1 cup of rum, and 1 cup of fresh lime juice in a large pitcher. Stir, fill with ice and enjoy! Best enjoyed within 24 hours, add ice before serving.

Spiked tea latte

Turn this butterfly pea flower cocktail into a spiked tea latte recipe! Simply add a drizzle of cream to make a deliciously creamy spiked tea latte like the Raspberry Black Tea and Blackberry Earl Grey Iced Tea Lattes. Only with rum 😉

No alcohol version

You can easily make this a Magic Color Changing Mojito Mocktail instead! To make a no alcohol mocktail version make the recipe as directed and omit the rum. Simply combining the minty sweet iced tea with lime juice like a modern color changing Arnold Palmer.

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