Ube Butterfly Pea Flower Tea Latte

Hi, everyone! I’m honored to have this opportunity to contribute to Chasing Foxes.

I’m Amali, also known as @milkteamali on TikTok and Instagram. I create home café drink videos (and sometimes food) that are aesthetically pleasing and relaxing.

And for a bit about myself, I’m an interactive design student from Georgia. I became interested in creating home café drinks due to my obsession with visiting as many bubble tea shops and cafés around me.

When quarantine started, I was obviously unable to go café hopping, so I wanted to bring the café atmosphere to my home. Shortly after, @milkteamali was born.

I’ll be sharing a recipe for one of my viral drinks with the most beautiful colors: Ube butterfly pea flower tea latte. This vibrant blue drink is caffeine-free, making it ideal for a calming effect. Also, it’s sweet and creamy with a subtle hint of vanilla.

If you’re a coffee-lover, this would pair nicely with espresso too!

Butterfly pea flower tea tastes quite earthy on its own, and it’s not a flavor that I particularly like. I love the color that the tea adds to drinks, so I always combine it with another flavor—I chose ube to achieve a blue to purple gradient.

If you haven’t heard of ube before, it’s a purple yam that originates from the Philippines. It is described as having a nutty, vanilla flavor.

For this recipe, I opted for ube flavoring rather than actual ube since it’s more accessible.

You can watch the (very pretty & relaxing) video tutorial here on Instagram. 🙂

Note that for all of my recipes, I believe that all of the measurements are up to you and what your preferences are. If you want the drink to be a little sweeter, add more sugar. If you want a stronger tea flavor, add more tea to the drink.!

This layered drink is versatile and can really be customized to fit any taste. Enjoy!

Ube Butterfly Pea Flower Tea Latte

A sweet drink, with a creamy texture, and a subtle hint of vanilla. This drink offers a refreshing taste, floral notes, and a visually striking color-changing effect.

Ingredients

Butterfly Pea Flower Tea

• ½ cup hot water
• 1 tbsp butterfly pea flower tea leaves

Ube Syrup & Milk

• 3 tsp hot water
• 3 tsp sugar
• 1 drop ube flavoring
• ½ cup milk of choice

Sweetened Cream

• ¼ cup heavy cream
• 1 tbsp milk
• Sugar to taste

Recipe

1. Brew butterfly pea flower tea by adding hot water to a few butterfly pea tea leaves and remove them once the color of the tea turns vibrant blue. The longer you leave the tea leaves in, the darker the blue color will be. Let the tea cool so that it won’t melt the ice later on.
2. For the ube syrup, mix the hot water, sugar, and drops of ube flavoring until combined. Let it cool. This is the “quick” way to make syrup since it’s a small quantity, but feel free to bring a larger batch of the syrup up to a boil.
3. To make the sweetened cream, whisk the heavy cream, milk, and sugar using a handheld frother or hand mixer until it reaches a slightly thick consistency. This usually takes around 2 minutes.
4. Add ice to a glass, ube syrup, milk, then stir until the milk turns purple. Pour the desired amount of sweetened cream on top, then carefully pour the cooled butterfly pea flower tea through the cream. Due to the thickness of the cream, the tea will layer directly above the ube milk, creating a beautiful layered drink with an earthy flavor.
5. Top this herbal blend with two butterfly pea flower tea leaves

Notes:

If you want to make this vegan-friendly, then definitely test out your favorite plant based milks to see which one works best with this recipe!