Easy Butterfly Pea Flower Tea Recipe (Plus Its Benefits)
This butterfly pea flower tea recipe gives you this stunning blue tea that has a mildly sweet, floral flavor. It’s the perfect tea that could be served warm during colder months or poured over ice for a refreshing summer drink.
The tea is loaded with antioxidants which give it that vibrant blue color. Those antioxidants have tremendous health benefits which I’ll discuss after getting into how to make the tea.
The antioxidants are also acid sensitive so adding a little lime or lemon juice will drastically change the gorgeous blue color into a vivid, beautiful purple. It’s a fun activity to try with the kids. Or it could be a great party at your next get-together.
Before getting into this butterfly pea flower tea recipe, be sure to check out my other tea recipes made with flowers like lavender and chamomile.
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Ingredients for butterfly pea tea
Equipment for this recipe
You don’t need any special equipment for this recipe but, here, I did use my teapot with tea infuser. It makes steeping the butterfly pea flowers so simple to do and takes all the hassle out of clean up. You can also use an electric kettle with an infuser too.
How to make butterfly pea tea
Pour water on the flowers
Bring the water to a boil using your preferred method – mine is with the kettle but you can use a saucepan or the microwave.
Add the dried butterfly pea flowers to the hot water in a tea infuser or teapot or saucepan. The water will start turning a light cerulean color almost immediately.
Steep
Leave to steep for 10 minutes. The longer you leave the flowers to steep the darker the tea will become. Here, within just 10 minutes, the tea had a dark blue sapphire color. Isn’t it pretty?
Serve
Strain and sweeten. You can serve it hot or over ice.
This step is optional. If you want a more purple drink, mix in a little lime or lemon juice. The color change is almost immediate, and the more juice you add, the lighter the purple will become.
Butterfly pea flower tea benefits
Butterfly pea is a great natural substitute for blue artificial food coloring and can be used to color foods from rice to desserts.
As for the health benefits of the tea, butterfly pea tea has long been used in Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine. This 2008 study notes, in Ayurveda, butterfly pea is believed to have benefits like:
- sedating
- relaxing
- anti-stress
- anti-anxiety
- anti-depressant
- memory enhancing benefits
These benefits are attributed to the compounds that give the tea its color, namely triterpenoids, flavanol glycosides and anthocyanins (which are all antioxidants).
The study also explored the pharmacological benefits of the tea and suggested it has:
- antioxidant
- anti-microbial
- anti-inflammatory
- muscle-relaxing
- pain-relieving
- anti-diabetic
- blood platelet aggregation-inhibiting properties.
However, there have been few clinical studies looking into these benefits. This small clinical study from 2018 proved that, after drinking the tea with sugar, participants saw antioxidant and lower blood glucose levels than expected. This proves anti-diabetic effects of the butterfly pea.
A Thai study from 2021 tested the effects of the flowers on overweight participants after enjoying a high fat meal. The results found the post-meal triglyceride and free fatty acids levels in the participants’ blood were lower when the tea was used.
And another 2021 study deep dived into the antioxidants present in the tea and their benefits. Lab and animal studies were cited showing the flowers’ antibacterial, antifungal, anti-cancer and even anti-allergy effects.
So the data is there to back up the benefits of butterfly pea flower tea. But, as with all teas, enjoy in moderation.
More herbal teas
Butterfly pea tea recipe
Butterfly pea tea with dried flowers
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp butterfly pea flowers (dried)
- 2 cups water
- 1 tsp lime juice (optional)
- 1 tsp sugar (optional)
Instructions
- Bring water to a boil using a kettle, saucepan, etc (approx. 5 minutes).
- Add flowers to a teapot with infuser or large mug.
- Pour boiling water over the flowers.
- Set aside to steep for 10 minutes.
- Strain.
- Sweeten (optional).
- Add lime juice (optional) for a color change.
- Serve hot or cold.
Loved this tea. The color was amazing and everyone loved the color change with the juice.
I just made it and Loved this tea. Thank you