Lychee Tea Recipe (Litchi Tea) - Greedy Girl Gourmet (2024)

Published: Jun 2, 2023 · Modified: Feb 29, 2024 by Zen · This post may contain affiliate links.

This easy lychee tea recipe is non-alcoholic and a perfect refreshing beverage for a hot summer's day! Moreover, it can be easily varied by changing the type of tea used, or adding other ingredients such as lemon, rose or ginger. It's summer in a cup!

Why Make This

1. Lychee tea is delicious: lychees have a beautiful floral flavor that is quite unlike other fruits and goes really well with tea
2. Quick and simple: if you can make a cup of tea, you can make this drink in just a few minutes!
3. Sounds fancy but inexpensive: makes a terrific mocktail when you're on a budget!

What are Lychees?

Lychee (荔枝, lì zhī), also known as lychee nuts, litchi and litchi nuts, is a fruit from the Soapberry family. Native to Southern China, it used to be a delicacy of the Chinese royalty but is now readily available year round in the dried and canned form.

You can also get fresh lychee when it's in season, from June-July. The lychee plant is amazing: there is a 1000 year old lychee tree in China that still bears fruit today!

However, I usually use canned lychees for this sweet tea as they're easier to get (from the Asian supermarket.)

Note: you can also make lychee tea using Vietnamese lychee tea bags- Vietnam is known for its sweet lychees, and even supplies them to China!

For more easy canned lychee recipes, check out this link.

Benefits & Warning

Lychee has been used in ancient Chinese medicine for many ailments, from stomach ulcers to coughs. Some modern research has shown that lychees have anti-tumor properties but more work needs to be done to confirm this.

Note: For a lychee dessert recipe, check out this Lychee konnyaku jelly, which my friends gush about!

Warning

Only the pulp is edible- the seed and peel are not. A lychee has one large seed, so be careful when eating it- the seed is not only a choking hazard, but can be toxic. Unripe lychees also have toxins that can lead to super low blood sugar. Hence, only eat ripe lychee!

Eating fresh lychees have led to reactions in some people, such as swelling of the lips and throat, dyspnea, or diarrhea

In 2019, according to CNN, many children in Northern India died from a brain disease associated with toxins from lychees. A BBC report stated that the children ate a lot of lychees on an empty stomach so I would not recommend eating too much of this fruit when hungry!

Moreover, in Traditional Chinese Medicine, foods are divided into neutral, heaty and cooling ones. Lychees are considered a heaty food so eating too many is thought to lead to illnesses such as sore throat, acne or fever.

Ingredients

You will only need a few simple ingredients:

• Lychee: I use canned lychee as it is readily available. Alternatively, if you want to prep ahead, you can mix dried lychee fruit with tea leaves in an air-tight container. When you want to make the lychee fruit tea, make sure that each cup has some tea leaves and a lot of dried lychees (so that it will be aromatic) then pour hot water in to steep, strain, then chill the dried lychee tea in the fridge.
• Tea: I prefer green tea as a base for this non-alcoholic lychee drink as it has a milder taste and complements the natural lychee flavor. (Jasmine tea is also a good choice. For more info about the various Chinese teas you can use, click here.) Use about 1.5 green tea bags- or whole leaf tea if you prefer- per cup of water for the lychee green tea. (If not, you won't be able to taste the tea.) You can also use variations of green tea, such as jasmine green tea. But do not pour boiling water over green tea, or steep it for more than 3 minutes or it may turn bitter.
• Sweetener (optional): A neutral flavoured honey, a syrup with a complementary taste (such as tangerine cheong) or white sugar. If you drink hot lychee green tea without sugar, it will have the faintest hint of a sour taste, so I recommend not skipping the sweetener if possible. (Do not use brown sugar as the caramel flavor will overpower the fruity taste.)
• Lemon slices and mint leaves (optional garnish): Citrus and mint complement the lychee flavor. Garnish right before serving, or at most 1 hour before serving. If you leave the lemon slices in the lychee drink overnight, there is a risk of the lychee drink becoming bitter (from the bitter lemon pith).

Note: If you're making this fragrant tea for a Halloween party, make some lychee eyeballs and add 1 to each cup!

Variations

1. Lychee rose tea: Add some dried rosebuds to your tea. If you want a non-caffeinated lychee drink, add the roses without the green tea bag.
2. Lychee ginger tea: Add some slices of ginger. Alternatively, you can replace the green tea bag with a ginger tea bag.
3. Iced lychee tea recipe with lime: If making iced tea, squeeze some lime or lemon into the pitcher and mix in some mint leaves. This is a very refreshing drink in summer!
4. For a decaffeinated drink, make this refreshing litchi juice!

You can also use other tea bases. It depends on your personal taste!

1. Lychee red tea: use 1 red tea bag per cup of water
2. Lychee oolong tea: use 1 oolong tea bag per cup of water
3. Lychee black tea: use 1 tea bag per cup of water (Be careful as the bitterness of black tea can easily overwhelm the delicate floral lychee flavor.)

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Pour fresh water into a pot and bring to a boil. Right before it breaks into a rolling boil (i.e. you see the surface shimmering but there are no bubbles), switch off the fire and place the tea bags into the pot.
2. Allow the tea to steep for 3-3 minutes (if using green tea) or to taste (for other teas.) Remove the tea bags.
3. Pour in all the contents of the lychee can- both the lychee syrup and the lychees.
4. Mix well and allow to cool.
5. Optional: you can add mint leaves or 2-3 lemon slices 1 hour before serving. Do not steep too much lemon for too long or your lychee drink will have bitter notes from the white lemon pith.

Expert Tips

Tip #1: Make sure the tea has been chilled in the fridge before adding the ice to prevent it from melting and watering down the tea. (I like to use lychee ice cubes so that the tea can sit out in the heat without getting diluted. To make lychee ice cubes, freeze some of the lychee tea or lychee syrup into ice cubes.)

Tip #2 Taste again before serving as the temperature affects our perception of sweetness. The lychee green tea could taste perfect when hot but bland when cold.

Tip #3: This lychee drink must ideally be prepared a few hours in advance as it tastes best after the lychees have infused their flavor into the tea. If you drink the tea when it's hot (unsweetened), it will taste almost sour and a little bland.

Tip #4:If you do not have time to allow the lychees to steep in the tea, you can decrease the tea: lychee ratio. i.e. use fewer cups of water for 1 can of lychees!

Recipe FAQs

Other Asian Fruit Recipes

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