Why Tea Is The Powerhouse Ingredient For Unbeatable Mocktails

There are different elements to cocktails beyond booze. There's flavor complexity and there's mouthfeel, too. A good cocktail has some balance of sweetness, acidity, and bitterness, plus other potential factors like earthiness, herbaceousness, spiciness, and smokiness. The alcohol itself contributes a touch of warmth and astringency, and has silky viscosity to its texture. So, when you're looking to create a really stellar mocktail, you want to nail these qualities as closely as possible. And one of the best ways to do that is with tea.

Tea is an excellent, versatile mocktail ingredient for a couple reasons. For one, there are tons of varieties that can step up and complement the flavor profiles of different recipes. Depending on the alcohol you're looking to substitute or the other mocktail ingredients you're working with, you can find a tea that's citrusy, floral, herbal, spicy, or all of the above. For another, teas are oxidized — meaning the leaves' internal enzymes are exposed to air, which intensifies flavors — to varying degrees, and that results in a nice touch of astringency that mirrors alcohol's tannins.

The best way to incorporate your tea is in the form of a syrup, because this achieves a spirit or liqueur's full, velvety mouthfeel. To make this easily elevated simple syrup, dissolve sugar in water over heat, then immediately add 2 to 3 tablespoons of loose leaf tea or 2 to 3 tea bags and let them steep, covered, for 15 minutes.

All you have to know to craft next-level mocktails with tea is what teas best fill in for what spirits. Black tea is a great swap for bourbon. It's the most oxidized kind of tea, so it has astringency matching the tannins bourbon gets from aging in barrels. Black teas tend to have robust, malty character, another good overall whiskey match, and they can also have chocolatey and dark fruity flavors, which could sub well for the dark, dried fruit notes of brandy and dark rum. Plus, specific varieties like lapsang souchong are smoky like whiskey or mezcal. Try black tea in the bourbon French 75 riff, a French 95, by adding a tea syrup to fresh lemon juice and non-alcoholic sparkling wine; or a classic sidecar, swapping black tea for the cognac and an orange-zest simple syrup for the orange liqueur. Make a dark and stormy with black tea instead of dark rum; in place of bitters, use a simple syrup made with your favorite herbs and spices.

Herbal tea is a dead ringer for gin because it is literally herbs and botanicals, which give gin its flavors. Make a Floradora cocktail instead using rosehip tea for both the gin and rose water, adding raspberry simple syrup, lime juice, and ginger ale. And for tequila, look to oolong tea — it's got grassy yet creamy, buttery notes that mirror the agave spirit well. Make a tequila sunrise with oolong tea, grenadine, and orange juice.