Butterfly Pea Tea
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
One of the ladies I met through a soaper's group sold a few pots of Butterfly Pea plants last Summer. I purchased two from her, out of curiosity. It was a buck each anyway. No flowers yet at that time and it took a few months before my first bloom (above) appeared. Isn't it gorgeous?
With little luck I have when it comes to plants, I'm happy that this is low maintenance. All it needs is sun and water everyday. I'd say this comes second to my Aloe Vera in terms of surviving my black thumb.
The flowers looked familiar and I wasn't sure why. After reading up on it, it dawned on me - I had this in a salad at some point. Fancy! I also found out that these are taken as a tisane (floral tea). So I tried it and here's the result:
Freaking cool, right?
I dropped one freshly picked flower in a cup and poured hot water over it. Right before my eyes, I saw the water turn blue slowly. It was a pretty awesome sight to behold. According to what I read online, the color will change to violet if you add some lemon juice. I have yet to try that.
What does it taste like? With just one flower in this cup, a very faint nutty taste. It gets stronger as you add more. But my plant doesn't bloom fast enough to get six flowers in there... maybe because the weather is colder?
A lot of online articles claim that drinking this tea has health benefits but this post explains why and cites research behind it. Yay! I'm going to need to spend time nerding out on this newly discovered information.
19 comments
Wow, that's glorious how it turned the water blue like that! <3
ReplyDeleteI have grown sweet pea vines in my garden from time to time, and some years they really take off and others I get no blooms. Mine have mostly been deep pink/raspberry. I didn't know that the flowers were edible! I love to use plants and tea as natural dyes for fabric, T-shirts etc. The colors are not usually color fast like chemical dyes but they are often very pretty. Yours is gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteHow cool that you made fresh tea! And it's such a pretty color.
ReplyDeleteThat is the coolest looking tea ever, and as a fellow black thumb I think I might give growing this one a try.
ReplyDeleteThis is all sorts of cool.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh how cool! I love floral teas, but have never had any from my own garden!
ReplyDeleteHow cool, don't think I have ever had a floral tea. Beautiful color, too.
ReplyDeleteso pretty.
ReplyDeleteThat's so cool! I've never had a floral tea, but the water is pretty!
ReplyDeleteOkay, this is just cool! I have never tried floral teas so I am certainly going to have to look more into them if they are like this!
ReplyDeleteThis is magical! I would love to drink blue tea!
ReplyDeleteThose would be fabulous used to dye fabric too!
ReplyDeleteThat's neat! Interesting that it has a nutty flavor.
ReplyDeleteThis ithe looks both pretty and intriguing.
ReplyDeleteThis makes the water look so pretty! x
ReplyDeleteIt's been years since I have drank sweet pea... I love adding the lemon because I'm a purple girl... now I need to go buy me a plant when they come back :)
ReplyDeleteThis tea sounds so neat, I'm not sure sweet pea would be to my taste but I do love everything purple x
ReplyDeleteOMG! I never heard of this but I need to try it asap! I love love love drinking tea.
ReplyDeleteNice sharing! Glad to read your post!
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