There's no better companion than a good tea! I'm not bought up with a habit of tea ...

... or never been a tea person growing up. Last year, however, I came across a good number of varieties of teas. Surprisingly I loved most of them.

Out of all of them, the two I really love are the hibiscus one and the butterfly pea.

I think I love them not for the flavour but the colours. Both of them have bright colours, red and blue.

More than that, it was the magic of acidity that makes it more attractive. The hibiscus flower extract, which is essentially the tea, get a deeper red colour when a little lime is added.

Butterfly pea flowers on the other hand has a blue colour. The extract comes as a pale blue or the lightest shade of baby blue, if to be described. And it gets to a deep blue when a little lime is added.

Both these flowers can be boiled fresh to make the tea. They can also be powdered and stored. It was the first thing I wanted to try getting back home.

I was asking everyone if I can have the hibiscus flowers like a crazy person. The fun fact is in Kerala, hibiscus flowers are attached to mentally retarded people. And making tea out of them is non existent here.

Hibiscus is a normally grown wildly in Kerala or it used to be. The same goes with the butter pea plant. But this time, when I actually looked for it I realised they are no more the unwanted wild flowers anymore. They've just disappeared from most places. That was sad!

But I did collect few from different places. Making tea out of the fresh flowers was easy but I didn't really like the sliminess of the petals when boiled. So, I dried them and I never knew it takes a long time to sun dry flower petals. They seem so thin and delicate.

Now I have the sun-dried, soft, paperlike hibiscus petals in the jar and a bright color splash in the glass!

And nothing makes a better companion than a colourful tea ♥️