You might wonder - how can tea be a healthy, positive alternative to alcohol? A hot cuppa doesn’t seem anything like a cocktail or glass of wine. In this article, we’ll be exploring ways to utilize tea’s natural complexity and feel-good qualities in other formats, from mocktails and fancy sparklers to more ritual-focused social tea drinking styles. With this in mind, the next time you have a party or just want something great for yourself, you will have some options that offer just as much - if not more - than the “default” choice.

Mocktails are non alcoholic cocktails. The best mocktails rely on alcohol-free mixology to make fun, celebratory drinks that look as good as they taste. When making mocktail drinks to replace alcohol, the challenge is building complexity and depth into a drink without a hard spirit base. Modern mixologists are increasingly turning to tea to achieve that complexity. Next time you want to serve something ‘fancy’ consider a tea mocktail like these:

• • Dark & Not Too Stormy:
  combine ginger ale with a concentrated shot of Wuyi oolong tea - garnish with a cinnamon stick or fresh-grated nutmeg

• • Green Tea Cooler:
  combine a shot of Laoshan Green tea with honey, then muddle with fresh mint and pour over ice - garnish with sprigs of mint

• • Oolong Punch:
  combine a shot of Wuyi oolong tea with guava and pineapple juice and a bar spoon of orgeat - garnish with an orange slice

How to Make Mocktails with Tea

Start with a strongly-brewed iced tea as a base, and then elaborate with your favorite herbs, sweeteners and fruit juices. Garnish with citrus peel, or a sprig of mint. If you prefer, you can also combine tea with your favorite sweetener to make a delicious simple syrup. If you start with good tea, you can’t go wrong!

More and more breweries are giving up tap lines to non alcoholic Kombucha, a brewed and fermented non alcoholic cousin to beer that starts with tea and sugar to make a sour, probiotic sparkling tea drink.

Kombucha is one of the easiest, most popular alternatives to alcohol on a night out because of its intense flavor and sparkle. A glass of non alcoholic kombucha swaps alcohol for tea’s unique caffeine + L-theanine balance. Plus, kombucha is a chance for homebrewers to geek out and make their own. If you do make your own kombucha, remember, kombucha is mainly tea, so use the best you can!

You can also use kombucha for good non alcoholic cocktails like:

• • Kombucha Mimosa
  pair lychee or white grape kombucha with orange juice and a few drops of vanilla

• • Kombucha Lemonade
  pair your favorite kombucha with lemonade for a sparkling treat

• • Komucha Cosmo
  add a splash of cranberry juice to sparkling kombucha - garnish with an citrus or star anise

Soda is often the default alcohol substitute at a party, but why not fancy things up a bit with a sparkling tea drink? It feels more satisfying than a soda, and you can control your sweetener or even leave sugar out entirely. Sparkling tea is not only great on its own, but excellent as the base to a mocktail.

How to Make Tea Soda

The easiest way to make a tea soda is to brew a very strong iced tea and simply add sparkling water. You can also create a tea simple syrup to add to sparkling water - just switch out concentrated tea for water in a classic simple syrup recipe. 

If you want to up your game, you can even directly carbonate iced tea with a sparkling water maker or a keg and some CO2. 

How to Make Flash Chill Iced Tea with a cocktail shaker

Brew a double-strong shot of tea in a pot or a mug and pour it over ice in a shaker. Shake vigorously for about 10 seconds, and then pour out over fresh ice.

Admire the foamy frothy results, and the great texture you get with this method. Learn more >>

How to Brew Gongfu Tea

If you want to try Gongfu, at heart it is as simple as brewing a lot of tea leaves in a very small amount of water, over and over until it gets lighter.

From that core, you can build out with fancy gear to really geek out with friends tasting fine teas and feeling the unique combination of L-theanine and caffeine that good teas have, leading to a sense of calm and focus.

Improved Mental Health

Alcohol increases the risk of dementia and depressive disorders, since it is itself a depressant. Excessive alcohol consumption is especially hard on mental health for those already at increased risk for depression. While cutting alcohol consumption could be a difficult goal coming from a place of alcohol dependence and depression, the CDC acknowledges major benefits to staying at or under moderate consumption, including better overall mental health.

Increased Immune Function

Alcohol is known to actually suppress the body’s immune response, increasing the risk of infectious disease. This is especially true for heavy drinking habits. Reducing alcohol consumption lifts this “throttle” on the immune system and lets the body do a better job fighting off risk of infection.

Reduced Risk of Liver and Cardiovascular Disease

Alcohol causes heart disease, hypertension of the heart and cirrhosis of the liver, with more serious risk directly related to levels of alcohol consumed. Cutting back on alcohol by adding interesting non-alcoholic beverages to your rotation gets total consumption down without having to feel like you have to abstain completely, and this can keep the heart and liver healthier.

Improved Quality of Sleep

Alcohol consumption, particularly in larger amounts, causes shorter and more frequently interrupted sleep by interacting with several of the neurotransmitter systems that regulate sleep.  Cutting back can help you take back your full REM cycle and wake up substantially better rested as a result.

Save Money 

As a bonus benefit, cutting back on alcohol saves money! Alcohol can represent a big piece of any bill at a restaurant, and bars or breweries can really stretch the budget. Even compared to low alcohol drinks, switching out alcohol for some non-alcoholic beverages prepared at home can potentially save you thousands of dollars a year, depending on your habits.

Alcohol has been around for thousands of years standing in as a social drink, stress relief, and high culture, but alcohol is not the only beverage that serves these functions. Tea can fill these roles neatly. Tea can give you more options to turn to besides the “default” go-to of alcohol, especially when tea can give us fancy, nuanced and rewarding experiences like mocktails, flash-chill, or even gongfu tea.

Learn more about brewing techniques, explore tea recipes, or just geek out on tea culture and folklore on our blog. Or, explore unique texture and aroma-forward teas that would impress even wine and whiskey connoisseurs, grown and hand-picked by small family farmers that set their own collections.

Here’s to a new world of beverages to explore!