1. Winter Warm Up - Sweetened Hibiscus Tea Recipe
There’s nothing like warming up with a soothing tea. This is the simplest way to enjoy hibiscus tea, and you make it like you would any other: boil water and pour it over 2 tsp of (crushed) dried hibiscus petals.
Depending on how strong you like it, let your tea steep for 5 to 10 minutes. It’ll have a thick, velvety texture and a dark, rich colour when it’s fully brewed. Make sure to cover your mug so it stays hot while you wait!
After the petals have been steeped to your liking, add some honey to taste. I like to add about 1/2 tsp per cup of tea.
Whenever I make a hot cup of hibiscus tea, I like reusing the tea bag to make a cold brew for later. The tea is so strong that if I use dried petals and only let it steep for 5 minutes, there’s usually a lot more flavour I can still extract from the petals.
If I don’t want to drink more hot tea, I’ll put the tea leaves in a cup of cold water and leave it in the fridge to sit overnight.
This way I have a nice refreshing zero effort cold brew to enjoy the next day. It also won’t be as strong because this is the second extraction of the petals.
2. 7-Minute Iced Hibiscus Tea Recipe
Proper cold brews take a long time. To get a proper cold brew you’ll want to let it sit overnight to extract the full flavour of the tea. However, it’s not always possible to plan that far in advance.
It happens to me all the time, after a walk or if it’s a very hot day, I start to crave a big glass of iced hibiscus tea. So instead of waiting until the next day to get my fix, I came up with a 7-minute iced hibiscus tea recipe. It’s ready when you want it!
I use 1/4 cup of water, 2 Tsp of crushed dried hibiscus, and a lot of ice (I’ll usually use half an ice cube tray per cup).
Boil the water, pour it over your hibiscus flowers and let them steep for a minimum of 5 minutes. This gives the flowers enough time to bleed their bright red colour into your hot water.
Take out the tea bag and mix in 1/2 to 1 tsp of honey, then add your ice. The first few will melt right away because of the hot water, but just keep adding more until your cup is full.
Just a side note, make sure to add the honey before adding the ice.
3. Overnight Hibiscus Sangria (Kid Friendly)
The overnight pitcher is the true cold brew tea with a few delicious additions. I love having a pitcher of iced tea in my fridge at all times during the summer as a nice cool down and refresher.
By adding in some extra ingredients, you can get the perfect punch to serve at all those summer BBQs. Because hibiscus has a rich dark red colour, it’s the perfect alcohol-free alternative to sangria.
Now for the recipe…Add 5 tsp crushed hibiscus petals and a few mint leaves to the pitcher. I still like to steep the tea in hot water for a few minutes. Then boil 3 cups of water and pour it over the tea. Let it steep for 5 minutes.
Once the hibiscus petals had time to steep, add 1 cup of mixed fresh or frozen berries. Fill up the rest of the pitcher with cold water and place it in the fridge overnight. When you’re ready to serve, take out the tea and mix in the honey to taste. I usually like about 2 tbsp, but start with 1 tbsp and then add more to taste.
4. Latte it Up!
Making hibiscus tea into a latte is actually quite tricky. Hibiscus is an acidic flower, which is bad when making a latte because milk and acidity don’t get along. When you add the milk to the tea, it’ll start to curdle if it’s too acidic.
So making this latte work took a lot of trial and error, but I eventually figured out two ways to get around this.
The first way is to use a tea bag instead of dried petals. The tea bags don’t curdle the milk because they’re usually not pure hibiscus tea.
If you’re still against using tea bags, your second option is to use oat or almond milk. It’s the low-fat content that can cause the milk to curdle.
So finally, here’s the recipe:
Brew 1/2 cup water with your tea bag for 5 minutes as usual (don’t forget to cover it!). Once it’s steeped add 1/4 tsp vanilla and 1/2 tsp honey. Once that’s dissolved, top it off with 3/4 cup oat milk and enjoy!
5. Add Some Energy To It
When I’m low energy but craving some hibiscus tea, I mix it with my favourite black tea. The hibiscus flower pairs very nicely with black teas, since it adds a floral note to the flavour.
This mix works for any of the other hibiscus tea recipes too if you need a caffeine boost. Instead of using 2 tsp of crushed hibiscus, I switch out 1 tsp for black tea.
I really love this mix when I need a little bit of a pick me up but still want the benefits of hibiscus. It’s also a nice change from my regular morning cup of black tea.
