This naturally caffeine free herbal drink is meant to be more fun than medicine although lavender is known for its calming and anti-inflammatory properties. The colour also comes from the natural antioxidants in the butterfly pea flowers. I tried something similar at a trendy cafe close to home and I found it so enjoyable that I set out to make my own.

Online I found a few ways to get a natural blue colour that can be added to smoothies, baking or hot drinks including blue spirulina, black gogi berries and butterfly pea flowers. I thought since I’d already be making a tea out of flowers butterfly pea would be an easy and cost effective way to make blue lavender lattes.

I started with 1 tsp each of lavender and butterfly pea flowers and ground them in a high powered blender dry cup. It would also work in a well cleaned coffee grinder or food processor. I ground them to get more flavour and colour while steeping the flowers. I then took a fine tea strainer and steeped for 10 min covered in a cup of hot water to lock in the flavourful aromatic oils from the lavender. If you were making a regular latte you could consider this the concentrated “espresso” to add steamed milk to.

For the milk I used oat milk in a high powered blender for a few min to froth and heat. Steaming the milk using an espresso machine would make a thicker, more luxurious foam. A trick I used to do is heating up milk in a pot and blending it in a regular blender to make it frothy. Pour the milk over the tea, add a bit of natural sweetener if its not sweet enough already and enjoy!