5 Delicious Hibiscus Tea Recipes You’ll Want To Try

You have to try these delicious hibiscus tea recipes. Hibiscus is one of my favourite herbal teas to enjoy all year round. Despite its rich, velvety red colour, the taste can be somewhat off-putting for most people.

It has a less than sweet tea taste, being on the bitter and tart side of teas. But, the benefits are endless to hibiscus tea that you may be looking to add it to your diet. That’s why I came up with 5 simple recipes to make hibiscus tea taste better, even if you’re not its biggest fan. 

With my all-natural hibiscus tea recipes, you can enjoy it as both an iced tea in the summer and as a way to cozy up in the winter. You can even make it into a latte or a punch for your end-of-summer family barbecue. 

Psst! This blog post contains affiliate links in it which sends me a bit of extra money if you use them… at no extra cost to you!

What Is Hibiscus Tea?

Hibiscus tea is made from the hibiscus flower which comes from the mallow plant family. The hibiscus flower grows in the tropical and subtropical parts of the world (so that means no hibiscus gardens on the east or west coast, sorry).

As I said, when brewed, hibiscus tea gives a beautiful red colour but a tart bitter flavour that can be unexpected. The taste is very similar to cranberry juice in that sense. 

I actually served this once at an afternoon tea party and everyone chose it as their tea of choice based on the color. Even with fair warning and a recommendation to add honey, people were still caught off guard by the unsweetened taste.

So I’m here to change that! Let’s explore what to add to hibiscus tea to enhance the flavour so we can benefit from this tea.

Where To Buy Hibiscus Tea?

Obviously, you’re going to need to get hibiscus tea for all of these recipes. When I first started drinking hibisus tea, it was hard to find. Nowadays, you may be able to find it at your local grocery store. I’ve found Traditional Medicinals hibiscus tea bags in the organic section.

If you’re interested in buying loose leaf tea, you can order online from Adagio Teas (see availability here) or even on Amazon (in Canada? Check out Amazon.ca).

5 Ways To Make Hibiscus Tea Taste Better…

1. Hot Sweetened Hibiscus Tea Recipe For Winter Warm Ups

There’s nothing like warming up with a soothing tea on those cold winter nights. This is the simplest way make hibiscus tea taste better. You make it like you would any other tea – boil water and pour it over 2 tsp of (crushed) dried hibiscus petals.

Depending on how strong you like it, let your tea steep between 5 to 10 minutes (like it really strong leave it longer!). 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. It’s as easy as that!

Re-use The Tea Bag – Hibiscus Tea Trick!

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. You can even add some honey to it before you drink it!

2. 7-Minute Iced Hibiscus Tea Recipe

Proper cold brews take a long time. Like really long. To get a proper cold brew you’ll want to let it sit overnight to extract the full flavour of the tea. But 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 nice cold 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 boiled water, 2 Tsp of crushed dried hibiscus, and a lot of ice (I’ll usually use half an ice cube tray per cup).

Boil 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.

After 5 minutes, 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. And Voila! Enjoy!

Just a side note,  make sure to add the honey before adding the ice. I forgot to add it once before and the honey just froze to my spoon and never actually mixed in. 

3. Overnight Hibiscus Sangria (Kid Friendly)

The overnight pitcher is the true cold brew hibiscus tea blend with a few delicious additions. It’s always nice 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 hibiscus tea blend punch to serve at all those summer BBQs. Plus because hibiscus has a rich dark red colour, it’s the perfect alcohol-free alternative to sangria.

For my cold brew pitcher, I only trust DAVIDsTea’s Iced Tea Pitcher (they sell a similar one on Amazon here). It has a strainer already inside where you can put your tea and extra fruit to steep.

The shape makes it easy to store in my fridge, and the hard plastic means I don’t have to worry about it breaking when I bring it outside. I’ve even packed this for picnics in the park. It’s supper travel-friendly and spill proof!

And now for the hibiscus tea blend punch 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. So boil 3 cups of water and pour it over the tea. Let it steep for 5 minutes. 

Once the hibiscus petals have 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 to steep 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.

To serve, pour your refreshing hibiscus cold brew over a glass full of ice and enjoy!

4. Hibiscus Tea Latte!

Right now, I can’t get enough of hibiscus tea lattes! If you’ve read my Earl Grey tea latte recipe (aka London Fog), you’ll know I’m not the biggest fan of sweet tea. So because hibiscus tea is quite tart, the latte never becomes overly sweet.

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 hibiscus tea, it’ll start to curdle if it’s too acidic.

So making a hibiscus tea latte work took a lot of trial and error, but I eventually figured out two ways to get around this milk curdle effect.

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, like Tazo’s Passion or Traditional Medicinals Hibiscus Tea.

If you read over their ingredients, you’ll notice they combine it with different additives like lemongrass, blackberry leaf, or rose hips etc..

Out of the two, I like the ingredients better in the Traditional Medicinals, and there’s also none of the artificial flavouring that Tazo adds. So even though hibiscus is the main ingredient, the other ingredients help cut the acidity.

If you’re still against using tea bags, your second option is to use whole or lactose-free milk. It’s the low-fat content that causes the milk to curdle.

So finally, here’s how you make hibiscus tea taste better in the form of a latte.

Brew 1/2 cup water with your hibiscus tea bag and let it steep 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 frothed milk. And enjoy!

My frother of choice is the Nespresso milk frother (find it on Amazon) it froths and warms up the milk at the same time. But you can also warm up your milk in the microwave for 30 seconds and forth it with this handheld milk frother on Amazon.

5. Hibiscus Tea Blend: Add Some Caffeine 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 black tea.

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 (my go-to is Assam tea). I either drink it as is, or add 1/2 tsp of honey to make hibiscus tea taste better.

I really love this hibiscus tea blend when I need a little bit of a pick me up but still want the benefits of hibiscus tea. It’s also a nice change from my regular morning cup of black tea.

More Tea Recipes Please!

• 7 Shocking Benefits & Risks of Hibiscus Tea
• 5 Delicious Summer Matcha Recipes
• The Best Earl Grey Latte (AKA London Fog) Recipe
• 9 Autumn Teas You Have To Try That Aren’t Spiced
• How To Make Turmeric Tea At Home: 7 Easy Turmeric Tea Recipes

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Last update on 2024-04-19 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API