One can never be a tea-drinker to a fault! There is no such thing. No tea tippler is ever out of one’s gourd.
In fact, a tea-lover can make even ‘the demon drink’ that becomes alcohol, saintlier!
Whether you love tea more than spirits, vice versa, or love them both fairly and squarely, here are some tea cocktails to flavour up both your drinking game and tea life.
And why do we need tea cocktails? To revel in the best flavours and wholesome goodness of our favourite teas while having a rave-up in a teacup.
1. Classic Black and Gold
Black and tan is a popular American layered beer drink with a paler ale at the bottom and a dark stout beer on top; a practice from 17th century English alehouses. (In Ireland though, you may want to ask for a ‘half and half.)
You can get the light and dark wallops you fancy to marry, to get any one of Black and Brown (Newcastle Brown Ale), Black and Orange (pumpkin ale), Black and White (any pale beer), and Black and Gold (hard ciders).
The éclat that becomes ‘Black and Gold’ and the genteel of tea has us creating this pour.
For the recipe, we will be using 2 parts beer for 1 part tea, lest the beer gets watered down. But you can go for half a pint of tea and half a pint of beer too if it works for you.
We’ll need:
- two-third a pint of Guinness stout beer (6.5 imperial fl. oz. or 380 ml)
- 2 bags of Green Tea/Mao Feng
- honey/golden treacle/simple syrup as per your taste/colours of your beer and brew
To ‘fix’ your cuppa:
- Brew the tea in one-thirds a pint of water (3.5 fl. oz. or 190 ml) for 3 to 5 minutes; 3 will do, for a smoother taste.
- Add sweetener to the warm brew to make it easier to dissolve. You can add it later too.
- Let the tea cool in the fridge. Do not freeze it sold though. Chill your beer too.
- Fill a pint glass halfway with the iced green tea.
- Now gently float the beer on top by pouring it over the back of a spoon to fill the glass. Ideally, the beer should simply slide in and wouldn’t froth.
- Enjoy the summer with the best of both worlds – the ‘Betterbeer’, if you will.
The beauty of this recipe is that you can use just about any combination of brew and draught to make a ‘half and half’ – fruity beers with floral or berry teas, chocolate beer with vanilla tea and cacao butter on top, black tea with pale ale, chai with pumpkin ale, Virunga chai with lager and mixed spice, and so on – the sky’s the limit; or is it one? One of the beverages just has to be darker than the other though, to achieve that Black and Tan aesthetic.
2. 3-Continent Whisky/ The World in a Whisky/ UÃsque da Gama
This tea cocktail owes its elements to European Scotch Whisky, African black Virunga and red Rooibos tea leaves, and the spicy notes of Indian chai. Birchall’s Virunga chai is a sylvan bond of black tea leaves, rooibos tea, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, orange peel, and ginger. With the added whit of whisky, the drink is heaven in winter.
We’ll need:
- 60 ml (2 fl.oz.) of Scotch whisky of your choice
- 1 bag of Virunga Chai Tea
- 1 tablespoon honey/golden treacle/syrup of choice
To ‘fix’ your cuppa:
- Brew the tea in 1 cup (250 ml) of water for 3 minutes at 100℃ (boiling water).
- Add honey or your preferred sweetener when the tea is still warm.
- Cooldown the tea to your preferred temperature.
- Stir in the whisky and done.
This drink is bound to uplift you, come quaggy rains or parky snows.
3. Summer’s Seaside Sunset Magic / Summer’s Ocean Sunset Magic / A Midsummer Eve’s Dream / Summer-Tide at Dusk
Summer’s here and the ocean’s summoning you by its very law.
You would sit there too, until dusk and until dawn.
Worry not if you can’t go, though.
Here’s a proper zawn at dawn.
We’ll need:
- 2 shots (60 ml) of Blue Curaçao liqueur
- 1 bag of Green Tea
- juice of half a lemon/1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 4 butterfly pea flowers
- 2 teaspoonfuls of honey/simple syrup/sugar
- mint leaves (optional, but recommended)
To ‘fix’ your cuppa:
- Steep the green tea and pea flowers in 1 cup (250 ml) of water for 3-4 minutes (or steep the pea flowers for a minute and add the green tea for the remaining 3).
- Add your sweetener to the brew.
- Crush mint leaves into a transparent, colourless glass.
- Pour in your spirits (both soul and liqueur) and brew into the glass. Blue Curaçao, Butterfly Pea Flower, and Green Tea together show aquamarine brilliance; your summer ocean is waiting now for the spell.
- You can always add ice cubes and lemon slices to your summer, so let’s do that with our drink too.
- Pour in the lemon juice and see the magic of dusk set in.
Enjoy your summer beach dusk any time of the day!
You can now bask in the glory of tea with the slight swirl of tot in each cuppa, come four seasons in a day.
