What is the Tea Squirrel up to? Testing out tea-based mocktail recipes to see if they meet my tea-centric expectations, obviously. If there’s tea in it, I want to taste it. Don’t you? Is the author of the recipe a tea drinker? Are they using tea because they believe in the potential of tea as an ingredient or because they need to use just another buzzword? So many questions, only one way to find out. Trying it out myself.

I came across the recipe for a mocktail called A little bit Russian by Julia Bainbridge. It’s a riff on a White Russian, a cocktail typically made with coffee liqueur. Think sweet (but not overly so) and creamy. A dessert cocktail, if you will. I had heard of Julia Bainbridge before, she’s a writer and the author of Good Drinks, a recipe book on non alcoholic drinks, but I had never tried one of her recipes.

So here’s how I approached her recipe. Julia makes a tea concentrate with loose leaf Assam tea and 5 crushed peppercorns. I must admit I got lazy and did not want to take out my 15 lb. granite mortar and pestle for 5 peppercorns so I ended up using them whole. And that’s probably the reason why I couldn't detect any pepper flavor in the final drink. So I skipped the peppercorns entirely. Instead of loose leaf Assam, I had a loose leaf English breakfast tea (which does contain Assam blended with other teas) and tested the drink with that and separately with a CTC organic Turkish black tea. I really loved how the drink tasted with Turkish black tea compared to the English breakfast blend. I also slightly increased the steep time for the concentrate from 5 to 6 minutes.

The black tea concentrate is then shaken with coconut milk, simple syrup, bitters and ice, then strained and garnished with orange peel. Julia’s recipe calls for Demerara simple syrup but I had a smoked tea vanilla cocktail syrup and used that instead. It’s so complex! Instead of cardamom bitters, I used some organic digestive bitters full of amazing botanicals. Bitters contain alcohol so feel free to skip them if you don’t want to or can’t use them. The original recipe didn’t specify what kind of coconut milk to use so initially I went with full fat canned coconut milk. Unfortunately, that was too rich and fat for my taste, so I used light canned coconut milk for my subsequent tests. I also slightly altered the ratio between tea concentrate and milk to make the tea flavor even more prominent. Additionally, I added an extra step before shaking the ingredients with ice. I blended the tea concentrate, syrup and coconut milk together with an immersion blender, and it made such a huge difference in terms of texture because it helped emulsify the ingredients so much better.

After countless rounds of testing, here’s my adaptation of A little bit Russian by Julia Bainbridge.

Ingredients

3 ounces black tea concentrate (recipe follows)
½ ounce RAFT smoked tea vanilla syrup 
1 ounce unsweetened light coconut milk (from a can) 
A few dashes Urban Moonshine digestive bitters (original) or more to taste
Orange twist, for garnish

Directions

Combine the tea concentrate, syrup, coconut milk in a blender. Blend on high until well blended. Pour mixture in a cocktail shaker and add bitters. Fill with ice, seal the shaker and shake for 15 seconds, until well chilled. Double-strain into a glass filled with fresh ice. Garnish with the orange twist.

Black Tea Concentrate

Yield: 6-8 ounces of concentrate, enough for 3-4 drinks

Ingredients

8 ounces just-boiled water
3 tablespoons (18 gr) loose-leaf black tea (Taylors of Harrogate loose leaf English Breakfast blend or loose leaf Turkish black tea)

Directions

Combine the water and tea in a heatproof bowl. Steep, uncovered, for 6 minutes. Strain and let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until chilled.

Would you try this tea mocktail?

Here’s a link to the original recipe.