A few weeks ago, while browsing photogenic smoothie recipes on Pinterest (because what else does one do late in the evening on a Thursday), I came across a blogger who used “blue matcha” to tint her yogurt a bright periwinkle.

Hold up..blue matcha?!

Having only known of green matcha, I looked up the company that sells it—Matcha.Blue. They offer 12-24g single canisters of blue, red, and pink matcha as well as a discounted bundle of all three. Intrigued, I looked at the ingredient lists to find how Matcha.Blue creates their teas. The truth behind the magic? The colored matchas are micro-powdered blue butterfly pea flowers (Clitoria ternatea), red hibiscus flowers (Hibiscus sabdariffa), and pink rose petals.

Rather than pay $15 + shipping for 22g of red powder to tint my smoothies, I went on Amazon and purchased a pound of food-grade dried hibiscus flowers for $9. Yep. Some people impulse-buy chocolate and I...impulse-buy dried flowers by the pound. But hey, if you ever want some blood-pressure lowering hibiscus tea, I gotchu. Catch me in the kitchen grinding teaspoons of hibiscus flowers with my mortar & pestle to make my bright red smoothies :)

-Pearl