8 Awesome Things You Can Do with Butterfly Pea Flower

Butterfly pea flowers have an extraordinary natural colouring ability. When brewed, it turns the water a vibrant blue colour, but this isn’t the magical part. The magic comes when the butterfly pea flower is in an acidic environment and the colour changes from blue to either a light pink/purple or deep violet. The intensity of the purple depends on the amount of flowers steeped.

Butterfly pea flower is a herbal tea and derives from the plant clitoria ternatea, named that because it’s shape supposedly resembles female genitalia. The reason it is classified as a herbal tea and not just a ‘tea’ is because it does not derive from the cameillia sinensis plant. Tea can only be labelled as such if it comes from this plant.

This flower has been used in Asian cuisine for centuries, mainly as a natural dye for confectionary and other foods and beverages, and also for its health benefits. In China, this flower is said to increase vitality and boost the immune system, while in India it is used as a poultice to treat inflammation.

Below are 8 different ways that you can include butterfly pea flower into your foods & beverages.

1. ADD TO WATER

Spice up your morning lemon water with butterfly pea flower. This flower has the amazing ability to turn your lemon water purple, not to mention the added health benefits. Lemon water is already great for boosting your metabolism, so imagine how supercharged by adding butterfly pea flower.

Turning water naturally blue is also a fun way to encourage kids to drink more water. If you steep the pea flower in a little water for a couple of minutes, remove the flowers and then top with cold water, you have created the perfect drink to cool your kids down and keep them hydrated.

2. MAGICAL LEMONADE

This is one of my favourite ways to use butterfly pea flower. I love how the colour gradient changes from blue to purple in this drink. To find the recipe, check out the “purple lemonade” Instagram story on @salimaskitchen’s page. Make sure you check out Salima’s Instagram for more butterfly pea flower inspired food and beverages, she has recently been experimenting with this amazing flower and coming up with some spectacular recipes.

3. MAGICAL ICE CUBES

My favourite party trick! Freezing the steeped butterfly pea flower into ice cubes is a cool and funky way to jazz up any beverage. I personally love adding them to a punch or cocktail and watching them melt and transform the colour of any drink. I will be posting a blog about these magic ice cubes in the near future, so make sure you join our mailing list down the bottom or to the side of this blog post to find out when that is.

Photo credit: https://www.theflavorbender.com/galaxy-color-changing-lemonade-slushie/

Photo credit: https://www.theflavorbender.com/galaxy-color-changing-lemonade-slushie/

4. GALAXY SLUSHIES

Another thing those magical ice cubes are perfect for - lemonade slushies! You can find the recipe for this aesthetically pleasing slushie on The Flavor Bender’s blog and tag her in your attempts to make it on Instagram. If you’re looking for somewhere to buy butterfly pea flower, look no further than our shop! Make sure you tag us in your tea posts as well, we love seeing the creative things our customers get up to with our teas.

5. PURPLE EGGS

Now this is seriously cool. In my travels to China, I remember being served an egg where it had a green tinge around the outside of the yolk due to being boiled in Tie Guan Yin. They were seriously delicious! This is a similar concept, except the eggs are boiled in normal water first and then left to soak in steeped butterfly pea flowers afterward for roughly 2 hours to give the outside of the egg whites this cool affect. Definitely going to be trying this for this Sunday’s breakfast!

Photo credit @salimaskitchen

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eggs living their best lives

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6. NATURAL FOOD DIE

Like the eggs above, butterfly pea flower has been used for centuries as a natural food dye. How amazing is it to make and use a plant based dye in your own home rather than buying dye made from lab chemicals, like petroleum. Click here to check out this blog post on why you should be using a natural food dye instead of the artificial stuff.

If you are looking for a natural purple dye, you can try adding something acidic like lemon juice to the butterfly pea flower dye. If you are looking for a lustrous red colour, try using our hibiscus herbal tea.

7. COCKTAILS

Give your cocktails a natural burst of blue, purple or pink with butterfly pea flower like @whats.marisa.drinking does on her Instagram! Below is an example of some of her creativity with this amazing flower. This flower is also wonderful for spicing up a classic like G&T or vodka, lime & soda or even your favourite white wine.

An easy & simple way to extract butterfly pea flower’s extraordinary colour is by simply brewing as many flowers as you’d like in just enough water to cover them for about 2 minutes and then adding this to your drink. Leave the flowers for a gorgeous garnish or remove with a spoon/small sifter.

8. Blue Latte

Just like matcha, butterfly pea flower can be used to create a bright coloured latte. This can only be achieved by using powdered butterfly pea flower, which we are about to stock in the near future. To find out when our powdered butterfly pea flower comes into stock, join our mailing list at the bottom of the page.

Although beautiful, butterfly pea flower’s natural flavour can only be described as woody. To liven up the flavour of this latte, you will need to add honey, vanilla syrup or a spice like cinnamon & nutmeg.

There is so much more to do with butterfly pea flower, but these were some of my favourites. To find out more ways you can be creative with this amazing flower, checkout #butterflypeaflower on Instagram.

If you purchase our butterfly pea flower and use it in your future recipes, don’t forget to tag us! We love to see & share what you get up to with our teas with the rest of our social media community. If you have any questions or want to share ideas about other ways to use butterfly pea flower, please feel free to share in the comments below.

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Tea Education, Tea RecipesCappa Stone Wines5 Comments