Butterfly pea flower tea — often sold simply as “Blue Tea” — is one of the more visually striking teas in our range, and also one of the most misunderstood. Here’s what it actually is.
Butterfly Pea Flower Tea: What You Need to Know
Blue Tea: What You Need to Know
It’s Not Made From the Tea Plant
This is the detail most people miss: butterfly pea flower tea isn’t made from *Camellia sinensis*, the plant that produces green, black, and oolong tea. It’s an herbal infusion (technically a tisane) made from the dried petals of the butterfly pea flower (*Clitoria ternatea*), a vine native to South and Southeast Asia.
This matters practically: butterfly pea flower tea is naturally caffeine-free, making it a genuine evening or anytime option rather than just a lower-caffeine alternative.
Why It Changes Colour
The deep blue colour comes from anthocyanins — the same family of pigments responsible for the colour in blueberries and red cabbage. Anthocyanins are pH-sensitive: in neutral water, the infusion is a striking indigo-blue, but adding something acidic — a squeeze of lemon, for instance — shifts the colour to purple or pink in seconds. This isn’t a food-colouring trick; it’s a genuine, visible chemical reaction, and it’s part of why the tea has become popular for its presentation as well as its taste.
What It Tastes Like
On its own, butterfly pea flower tea has a mild, slightly earthy, woody flavour — it’s not strongly sweet or floral. Most people enjoy it with a small amount of honey and lemon, partly for taste and partly to watch the colour-shift happen.
How We Brew Our Blue Tea
Our Blue Tea is grown and dried in our West Garo Hills garden alongside our other teas.
- Water temperature: 75–85°C
- Steep time: 4–5 minutes (longer than green tea, since the dried petals need more time to release their colour and flavour)
- Re-brewable: yes, generally for one additional steep with a longer second infusion
A Few Practical Uses Beyond a Hot Cup
- Iced butterfly pea tea with lemon makes a naturally colour-changing cold drink
- It’s sometimes used in South and Southeast Asian cooking as a natural blue food colouring for rice and desserts
- Because it’s caffeine-free, it’s a reasonable choice for an after-dinner cup without affecting sleep
Try It
If you’ve only seen butterfly pea flower tea on social media, brewing it yourself is worth doing once just to see the colour shift happen in your own cup. Order our Blue Tea from our West Garo Hills garden.