IN THE KITCHEN

Putting the Tea in Nightlife

JWU students concoct creative drinks that are both healthy and elevated

It’s a cocktail…but also tea, trendy yet good for you: it’s a Super Bev. This is the premise distilled (or steeped) into the competition Johnson & Wales University hosted this past fall in partnership with Bigelow Tea. Eight student teams (some working solo, others with partners) meticulously developed and then put their recipes to the test by shaking them up for a panel of judges to see how their Super Bevs stacked up in two categories of Bigelow herbal tea-based drinks: cocktail and mocktail.

The two winning recipes share a superfood-forward tea: blueberry acai. “Knowing that the beverage was supposed to be healthy, I wanted to make something very light and something attention-grabbing,” explains Celia Kinneary, who, along with Emma Lundquist, won in the spirits-free category for their Purple Pineapple. The antioxidants, nutrients, and benefits in reducing inflammation made blueberry acai an easy choice for their citrusy-sweet drink. Providence native Angie Escalante was similarly drawn to the tea’s health benefits, but bringing her marketing major to good use, also saw the opportunity to make her bevvie Insta-worthy. Her Bigelow Blueberry Butterfly Empress, which stole the cocktail category, achieves a vibrant fuschia color. Pulling inspiration from Providence’s bar scene, Escalante explains, “I went out one time to the Alley Cat and ordered a lavender gin spirit and it had the beautiful diffusion from indigo into lemon,” which is how she discovered the butterfly pea blossom