Butterfly Pea Flower Purple Lemonade is a surefire way to WOW just about anyone and it's such an easy "wow" to pull off! Keep reading to learn just how easy this recipe is to make & learn about some of the science-magic that happens to make butterfly pea flower lemonade so beautiful without any food coloring!

Can you believe how VIBRANT these colors are? It reminds a bit of the shocking pink of the syrup we made from the fruit of a prickly pear cactus!

About Butterfly Pea Flower

Butterfly Pea Flower Tea isn't new, but I hadn't heard of it before 2024. It is definitely increasing in popularity. The tea on its own is herbal, caffeine-free, and relatively mild in flavor. It steeps to a beautiful blue color.

It is simply made of dried butterfly pea flowers.

One reason why this tea has become sooo popular is because something magical happens when the blue butterfly pea flower tea interacts with acidic lemon juice - it turns PURPLE!

In my experience, just about everyone is thrilled to be served an epic glass of purple sunset-y (new adjective, you're welcome) butterfly pea flower lemonade.

I chose to use organic butterfly pea flower tea in cloth tea bags for this recipe. I read a study recently that demonstrated using plastic tea bags can leach a lot of microplastics into your beverage, and I figured that was an easy enough thing to avoid by skipping the plastic tea bags.

How To Make Butterfly Pea Flower Tea Lemonade

The most simple explanation of this recipe is that I took my classic homemade lemonade recipe and subbed one cup of butterfly pea flower tea for one of the cups of water in the original recipe.

I also went ahead and created a step-by-step guide of the process for you too:

Steep one-two teabags of butterfly pea flower tea in 8oz hot water. The longer you steep it, the more vibrant the color. Don't worry about overstepping - the tea is so mild, it won't affect the flavor.

2. Once the tea has finished steeping, remove the bag and add ½ cup of sugar to the warm tea. Stir until dissolved.

a hand holding a ½ measuring cup full of sugar

3. Combine lemon juice + 3.5 cups of water. (I opted to add the ie now as well - you can add it now or later!)

4. Now it's time for the fun part! Add the butterfly pea flower tea to the lemonade. I prefer to start with just a tablespoon at a time because the color change is so fun to watch!

After a few spoonfuls, I usually dump the rest in. Color changing magic!

5. Stir to combine and pour into glasses for serving! Take a minute to admire and be amazed at the beauty. My kids kept staring at it and saying "Mom, are you SURE that's just from the tea?!"

I was so proud of how beautiful it was I almost didn't want to drink it - but I'm glad I did because it is delicious!

This is so easy and so spectacular - you really need to give it a try!