Give Non-Alcoholic Drinks A Tart Twist With Hibiscus Tea

As mocktails grow in popularity, we're always looking for ways to make non-alcoholic drinks taste like the real deal. Many mocktails come across as more of a fruit juice, which certainly isn't worth the steep price tag that the mixed drinks come at. To elevate your mocktails with tartness, use hibiscus tea.

Stemming from the dried petals or calyx of the hibiscus flower, hibiscus tea is a little sour, sweet, and overtly tropical. The flavor is layered, making it the perfect ingredient to elevate mocktails at home. The difference between a true mocktail and juices parading as a mocktail is the way it travels across the tongue. Non-alcoholic drinks with no depth go down like regular juice, but a good mocktail mimics the texture and feel of spirits. Like tequila, whiskey, and rum, hibiscus tea is fairly high in tannins, which can have a mouth-puckering effect.

Coupled with the tartness that smooths over into a berry-like sweetness, hibiscus tea gives mocktails an alcohol-like mouthfeel without muddling the senses. Agua de Jamaica fully showcases the depth that comes from hibiscus alone. The refreshing drink features only lime and sugar, with the dried hibiscus providing all the bitter, floral, fruity flavor a mocktail could need. Hibiscus tea also elevates other mocktails with its tangy acidity; it doubles down on the beachy flair of a tropical matcha mocktail and brings a tart balance to next-level frozen Shirley Temples.

You can not only use dried hibiscus for vibrant cocktails, but you can completely swap out the liquor to turn your favorite drinks into a non-alcoholic beverage. If you're looking to draw out the tropical flavor of a spicy pineapple lemonade summer cocktail, switch the vodka for hibiscus tea. The floral brew draws out the sweetness from the pineapple while keeping it in check with a slight dose of bitterness. Vodka does go down quite smoothly, so you can steep the dried hibiscus for less time so the tannins aren't overwhelming.

Like hibiscus tea, tequila is tannic and well-rounded, with layers of flavor within every sip. For a non-alcoholic take on a botanical blackberry sage margarita, switch out the clear spirit for hibiscus tea. The deep red flower has a strong herbaceous note that perfectly embraces the sage, while the fruity flavor makes a great pair to blackberry.