Tea Mocktails: Fancy Non-Alcoholic Drinks Using Tea

If you’re looking for a guide to fancy non-alcoholic drinks using tea, look no further! Whether you’re on a nine-month hiatus, hosting an elegant party for underage tea lovers, embracing a teetotaler lifestyle, or simply love your tea and want to dress it up, we’ve got a mocktail for you! 

Fun with Fruit

Many of the most popular alcoholic beverages are fruity. Margaritas, mimosas, sangria, daiquiris—if it comes in a fun glass with a tiny umbrella, there’s bound to be fruit in it.

When you take the alcohol out of the equation, you can still have fun glasses, tiny umbrellas, and delectable fruity flavors! 

The knee-jerk reaction when creating a mocktail is to lead with juice. Which is delicious! Who doesn’t love juice? But if you want to feel like you’re drinking a fancy beverage instead of a throw-back to elementary school snack time (an admittedly delightful time…give me graham crackers and a box of apple juice any day!) it’s important to punch up your punch with other ingredients. 

Tea, infused syrups, fresh fruit, and sparkling water are all great options! 

You can elevate any mocktail by adding your own tailor-made simple syrup to round out the base flavors. Simple syrup is, as the name suggests, super simple to make—traditionally, you boil equal parts sugar and water. Make it your own by infusing your syrup with fragrant herbs, complex spices, or tasty fruits! You can easily add nuance and flavor just by drizzling in a dash of sweetener. 

Choose your mocktail based on the fruit flavors that most intrigue you, or by the mood you want to set. 

Looking for something light and elegant? Try a faux-mosa! A base of fizzy water or sparkling cider, augmented with a splash (or half-and-half ratio) of juice. Orange juice is classic, pomegranate juice is exotic and beautiful, apricot or grapefruit juice is sophisticated, grenadine is cheery, and pineapple juice is a tropical twist! Check out this post for a tea-based take on a classic faux-mosa.

Feeling something bold and fresh? Try a mock-arita! A zippy lime, hibiscus, or strawberry tea makes an excellent base, rounded out with orange and lime juice, and sweetened with a touch of simple syrup. You can drink it on the rocks with a sugared rum for an extra fancy touch, or blended for frozen, slushy bliss. Maybe add a lavishly garnished umbrella spear and a fun twisty straw to complete the vibe. 

In the mood for something fun and vibrant? You can easily turn any sangria recipe into a fancy non-alcoholic drink made with tea, simply by swapping out the wine for tea. That makes it, what, a tea-gria? Sang-tea-a? Either way, yum. 

Simply follow the fruit infusions as directed in the recipe, (check out the Plum Deluxe blog for inspirations—tons of great ideas there!) and replace any red wine with your favorite fruity black tea, any white wine with your favorite green or white tea, and any sparkling wine with your favorite fizzy water or sparkling cider. You can also eat the tea-soaked fruit as a snack with your sang-tea-a! Bonus! 

Creamy and Dreamy 

If a rich, creamy mocktail is more your style, consider starting with your favorite iced tea latte as a base and building from there. 

You can fancy up your iced chai latte, London Fog, or Thai tea with a honeyed sugar rim and a sprinkling of cinnamon or freshly grated nutmeg. 

Add a splash of coffee or a teaspoon of espresso powder to emulate kalua and cream. 

Stir in a spoonful of cocoa powder, hot chocolate mix, or Nesquik powder (made to dissolve easily in cold milk—perfect for chocolatey iced lattes!) for a zero-proof King Alfonse. 

If you’re open to it, different flavored bitters can be a fun way to create complexity in your drink. Chocolate, walnut, and cardamom bitters all add a touch of fanciness to a drink in less time than it takes to ask, “but is there alcohol in those…?” While technically alcoholic, you only add a few drops at a time to coat the sides of your glass, so it provides depth and nuance with a truly negligible amount of spirits. 

For more of a toes-in-the-sand, cool-island-breeze kind of feeling, cream of coconut is a very fun ingredient to play with! Cream of coconut—different from coconut cream or coconut milk—is an ingredient well worth tracking down. It’s used in a wide variety of tropical cocktails for its creamy texture and added sweetness.

In a pinch, you can always use whatever coconut milk product you have on hand and add extra sweetener to your mocktail, but keep in mind that the texture and flavor will likely be different. 

I highly recommend combining cream of coconut with Coconut a la Crème black tea for a stellar flavor! The perfect base for a Pina No-Lada—blend it up with some ice and pineapple juice, and you can practically hear the sound of the waves lapping against the shore with that first sip! 

To play with fun variations, dress it up with a splash of grenadine, mango juice, fresh strawberries, or—hear me out—a scoop of vanilla ice cream!  

Fresh and Fancy 

For truly fancy non-alcoholic drinks using tea—the ultimate in elegance, suavity, and sophistication—I turn to infusions, kombucha, and egg whites! 

Infusions, be they infused cream, honey, syrup, lemonade, or sugars, are a simple way to bring a touch of refinement to any beverage. (There’s an article for each type of infusion on the Plum Deluxe blog—check them out!) 

You can experiment with any type of herb in your infusions—basil, rosemary, mint, thyme, and even cilantro. Rosemary simple syrup with grapefruit bitters and a spritz of lemon changed my champagne cocktail game forever. (Also delicious when you replace the champagne with grapefruit or lemon seltzer water!) 

Spices also make for delicious infusions. Cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, clove—a little goes a long way, and it can totally change the essence of your mocktail! These green tea shots use lemon-ginger-infused honey to boost the flavor (and the health benefits) of the drink.

Kombucha, a tea-based fermented beverage, comes in all flavors and varieties. Some brands, like Humm, are approachable for any palate and essentially taste like sparkling juice. Other brands, like Camellia Grove, highlight the flavor of the tea base, augmenting the drink with add-ins without overpowering the natural taste of the tea. Some brands present a more astringent, vinegar-forward flavor profile. 

With so many kombuchas and so many flavors—blueberry lemon, coconut lime, lemon ginger, berry blend, jasmine lavender—you can find a kombucha that will add a pop of style and effervescence to a whole range of mocktails! 

Take iced drinks to the next level with fancy ice cubes! Using juice, tea, or flavored syrups instead of water can enhance or modify the flavors in your drink as the ice slowly melts, rather than watering it down. 

Freezing herbs, fruit, flowers, or citrus peels into your ice cubes adds an artistic visual appeal. Consider blueberries, raspberries, lavender buds, rose petals, mint leaves, violets, lemon zest, or basil. Fun molds like hearts, flowers, or one giant sphere can also create an interesting aesthetic. 

Personally, I’m a sucker for an egg white cocktail. If you’ve never had one, I can understand that you may be skeptical, given the description. Most people expect egg whites in an omelet rather than in their mocktails. While the egg white doesn’t add to the flavor of a beverage, it does amazing things for the texture—silky and satiny, luscious and lovely!

When shaken with other ingredients, the egg white will turn to foam and separate from the rest of the liquid. You strain the drink into a glass, top it with the frothy bubbles, and enjoy! The result is an incredibly smooth, velvety mouthfeel with every sip. Delicious! 

Try a base of Raspberry Revitalizer tea with a splash of lemon and pomegranate juice, sweetened with simple syrup, shaken with an egg white, and topped with kombucha. Fancy, fancy pants! 

Whether you go fruity, creamy, fancy, or a combination of all of them, you can create fancy non-alcoholic drinks using tea for everyone to enjoy!