Lavender Earl Grey Frappuccino with Honey Vanilla Whipped Cream
This Earl Grey Frappuccino is a honey-sweetened and creamy frozen blended drink infused with the iconic bergamot flavor of Earl Grey and the floral essence of lavender. Topped with a delicious honey vanilla whipped cream, this frappe is a perfect summer treat for tea lovers!
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So I’m a little obsessed with tea, and especially Earl Grey. Earl Grey is one of the most well-known flavored black teas, infused with the citrus flavor of the bergamot orange. Now, to me it doesn’t taste like citrus. It just tastes like Earl Grey. But I’m sure if I ever tasted a bergamot orange, it would taste like Earl Grey to me.
While I literally have a cabinet FULL of about a hundred varieties of tea, Earl Grey is my everyday go-to hot beverage for chilly mornings or relaxing evenings. I think it’s perfect with just a splash of cream, and no sugar.
But that’s not to say that’s the only way I like it. I pretty much want everything to taste like Earl Grey, from scones to marshmallows to a classic London Fog tea latte to this super awesome frappe.
I met this lavender Earl Grey Frappuccino at my local coffee shop about a year ago and it’s been true love ever since. Cold and creamy, it’s sweetened with honey and has a subtle floral undertone. This frappe is where dreams come true.
But while theirs uses a pre-made powder to get this delightful flavor, I figured out how to make this lavender Earl Grey Frappuccino at home with tea bags and dried lavender so I could have it on more than just our Saturday coffee shop outings. Turned out that skill came in pretty handy since we’ve been avoiding going out this year.
While I make this black tea Frappuccino with Earl Grey tea bags and dried lavender, there are actually lavender Earl Grey tea bags you could get instead. Or, if you’re not into floral flavors, you could skip the lavender and add a teaspoon of vanilla for a London Fog Frappuccino (a London Fog is Earl Grey and vanilla).
Should I make this with Lavender Earl Grey tea or dried lavender plus Earl Grey Tea?
It’s really up to you. If this is the only thing you plan to make with it, it would save you some cost to go ahead and just get lavender Earl Grey tea bags.
However, I like my daily Earl Grey plain, and it’s nice to have separate lavender for things like the lavender icing on these scones. If you go this route, you can get either loose dried lavender or tea bags where lavender is the only ingredient.
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Bigelow Earl Grey Black Tea Bags
This is the Earl Grey tea I drink every day and use for this recipe. It tastes great!
Lavender Herbal Tea, Loose Leaf
I got my loose lavender flowers from the Spice and Tea Exchange but any culinary lavender or loose leaf lavender tea, like this, will work for this recipe.
Buddha Teas Organic Lavender Tea bags
If you'd rather not deal with loose tea, these tea bags contain only one thing - lavender flowers. Many lavender teas are actually lavender and chamomile or some other herbal blend, so make sure you look at the ingredients and check that it's lavender only!
Twining Tea Lavender Earl Grey
If you'd rather get one product instead of two, you can get these combo lavender Earl Grey tea bags. Revolution is another brand that has a lavender Earl Grey.
How to make a lavender Earl Grey Frappuccino
There are two and a half cups of ice cubes in this recipe to get that perfect icy texture, but I didn’t want to dilute the creaminess any more by using plain old steeped tea as the liquid. So for this Earl Grey Frappuccino I steep the tea — extra strong — in milk. It has to have enough tea flavor for essentially three cups of liquid, so I use three Earl Grey tea bags plus a teaspoon of dried lavender flowers (or, if you’re using lavender tea bags, one bag).
While the tea-steeped milk is cooling, you can whip up the dreamy honey vanilla whipped cream. (Can you say yum??)
If you want to pipe it all fancy like in my photos, you can use one of these large star-shaped piping tips with a piping bag or through a hole in the corner of a Ziplock bag. If you plan to do this, you should prep it before you blend your Frappuccino so you don’t waste precious time filling a piping bag while your frappe melts.
If not, you can just spoon the whipped cream on top and it will be just as delicious, I promise.
Also, if you just want a little dollop of whipped cream and don’t want to deal with a stand mixer (or hand mixer), may I introduce you to my little hack for making a single serving of whipped cream in under a minute?
Then just blend the steeped milk with ice and cream in your blender until fully blended. My blender has a setting called “smoothie” that’s just right for a frozen blended drink. Sometimes the mixture kind of gets stuck and stops moving around visibly — in that case, either use a blender tamper or turn off the blender and give it a quick stir with a spoon or spatula; then resume blending until smooth.
After it’s smooth, just drizzle a little honey onto the insides of your glasses (not too much, you don’t want to oversweeten the frappe!) pour the blended drink into the glasses, and top with whipped cream. After one final honey drizzle, you’re ready to go!
What to serve with your frappe
This is a pretty sweet drink (not too sweet, but sweet enough) so you probably want to pair this with something savory. At the coffee shop, I always loved ordering this with a sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich on an everything bagel or a croissant. Yum!!
More Earl Grey recipes
If you love Earl Grey tea as much as I do, check out some of these other recipes!
Lavender Earl Grey Frappuccino
Ingredients
For the frappe
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tsp lavender flowers or 1 lavender tea bag
- 3 bags Earl Grey tea
- 1/4 cup honey plus more for drizzling
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 2.5 cups ice
For the whipped cream
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Heat milk and honey in a small saucepan over medium heat to just below a simmer (do not boil) and add Earl Grey tea bags and lavender flowers (or lavender tea bag). Heat over low heat, stirring frequently, for 3 minutes and remove from heat. Cool to room temp, remove tea bags, and strain through a fine mesh sieve.
- While the tea is steeping in the milk, pour the heavy cream in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on medium speed until the cream starts to look a bit foamy/fluffy, but hasn't started to reach soft peaks yet. Add the vanilla and continue to beat on medium high until soft peaks are reached (this will happen fairly quickly).
- Remove the bowl, add the honey, and whisk by hand to fully incorporate the honey until the cream reaches stiff peaks. The honey sinks to the bottom of the bowl so if you try to do this in the stand mixer you risk overbeating the whipped cream before you are able to incorporate the honey.
- If you plan to spoon the whipped cream onto your frappes, just set aside the whipped cream for now. If you plan to pipe it into the glasses with a decorative piping tip, cut off the corner of a piping bag or freezer ziploc bag and insert the piping tip. Spoon in the whipped cream to get it ready to pipe as soon as your Frappuccino is blended.
- Add strained milk mixture to a blender with ice and cream and blend on the smoothie setting until smooth. (You may need to stop the blender and mix it a little with a spoon or spatula if the mixture stops moving. A blender tamper can allow you to do this while the machine is still running.)
- Drizzle honey in a glass, then pour in frappe. Spoon or pipe whipped cream on top and drizzle with additional honey.
- Serve with a fancy straw and enjoy!
So delicious. It was a little too sweet because I didnt have enough ice so I just added extra milk which made it a little more iced latte style and less frappe style. But delicious either way!
Yum yum! So glad you liked this, and thanks for your comment!