Butterfly Pea Ti Punch

Butterfly pea tea is a wonderfully light tea that has some very unusual traits. The tea is made from beautiful indigo flowers that grow in Southeast Asia. The flowers, once dried, can be brewed into a tea that is just as blue as the fresh flowers are. The color is very sensitive to pH, so when you add an acid to the blue liquid (water, for instance), it will turn violet and then pink depending on how much acid is added to it. This naturally colorful tea is a fun ingredient to work with behind the bar and we’ve seen some very creative concoctions floating around Instagram in the past few months.

This Butterfly Pea Ti Punch is easy to make and it’s a great way to spice up a very simple drink. We started by infusing loose leave tea into St George California Agricole Rum. You can use any white rhum agricole that you like. The tea will start to turn the rum blue purple after only a few minutes. The tea itself has an extremely mild floral flavor, so focus on the color and not the flavor intensity of the infusion here. A longer steeping time will lead to a deeper color. Once it has steeped, you’re ready to ti! You can use tea bags instead of loose-leaf, too.

Pour your rum into a rocks glass, add a dash of simple syrup (we like two dashes) and squeeze in about 1/4 of a lime, then give the mixture a stir. As you add the lime juice, the drink should turn from blue to purple. While ice is consider option in ti punches, we recommend it here because it will help bring out the violet color as it adds some dilution to the punch.

Though it is simple, this is a surefire crowd-pleaser at parties! The infusion here yields enough for 6 ti punches. You can scale it up or down, but we don’t necessarily recommend turning a whole bottle of rhum agricole blue your first time out!

Butterfly Pea Ti Punch
Infusion
1 tbsp loose-leaf butterfly pea tea
12 oz rhum agricole

Per drink
2 oz blue rhum agricole
1-2 tsp simple syrup
1/4 lime

For the infusion: Combine tea and rhum for approximately 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. You can steep longer for a more intense color. Strain out tea leaves.

For the punch: Pour rhum into a rocks glass. Add in simple syrup and squeeze in the juice of the lime wedge. Add additional lime and sugar, to taste. Stir to combine. Add ice, if desired, to highlight the color change.