Anchan - Butterfly Pea Flower Tea

Dried butterfly pea flowers, the ones Thailand brews into a bright blue cup. Anchan is not tea leaf, so there is no caffeine. The taste is very soft and almost neutral: light grassy notes, a hint of fresh peas and a barely-there sweetness. The whole effect is in the colour: a drop of lime turns blue into purple.

An evening drink with no caffeine, a striking colour change when you add lemon, and a souvenir from Thailand that weighs next to nothing. Anchan gets credited with all sorts of health benefits, but human studies are still few, so for us it is first of all a beautiful natural ingredient, not a medicine.