We Brought A Lime To EPCOT For SCIENCE…And It Ended In Epic FAILURE!

EPCOT’s International Festival of the Arts serves up some pretty gorgeous dishes.

EPCOT International Festival of the Arts

So gorgeous, that we give each one a special photoshoot before we dive into the almost-to-pretty-to-eat foods and drinks. And, over at The Painted Panda booth, the Sea Butterfly has become a regular visitor to the festival. We get it — it’s STUNNING! But, what if we could make it even MORE pretty?

We try a lot of things when we attempt to hack a Disney snack and for this one, we’re calling on science.

Now, here at DFB, we aren’t science majors, but we do know a thing or two about food. And, one of the coolest bits of food facts is that butterfly pea powder can turn from purple to pink with some sciency tricks. Without getting too technical, the PH balance in the powder is very sensitive, and adding something acidic, like lemon or lime juice can change the color of the drink from blue to purple to bright pink. Do you see where we’re going here?

The Sea Butterfly is a Butterfly Pea Flower infused Cocktail with Lychee Syrup, Vodka, Light Rum, and Magic Boba Pearls. So…theoretically…we should be able to work some color-changing magic, right?

Sea Butterfly

At least that’s what started it all in the DFB text thread… . Here’s a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at our text thread!

Now, THIS is why we hired you!

We really wanted to see if this cool trick would work so we went on the hunt for a lime in EPCOT. Yes, we asked many Cast Members for a lime, and no, we’re not ashamed of it. Thanks to some quick thinking on our team, our first stop was the Mexico Pavilion.

Good thinking!

After all, it’s MEXICO, they put lime in beer, right? APPARENTLY NOT. Mexico had no limes. Then ensued the National Treasure-like hunt to make a pink drink with something acidic.

Mexico Pavilion

Our head honcho, AJ, was thinking quick on her feet — what about Lemonade? Well…it just wouldn’t be as pretty as it could be.

AJ to the rescue! …but she was quickly shut down

Surely, the BOOTH named Citrus Blossom will have something. Nope.

The Citrus Blossom

So, our first attempt failed. But, here at DFB, we don’t give up on a good idea especially when it comes to Disney snacks. So, the next time we packed our bags for Disney, we packed limes. Nothing like some BYOL (bring your own lime) — it’s basically a party trick!

Time to BYOL

If 2021 is the year Disney security bans citrus it’s probably because of us. But we don’t care, because we FINALLY got the goods to the China Pavilion to give this hack a try.

Sea Butterfly

We raced past the Mexico Pavilion (scolding it a little for what it made us do) and ordered up one Sea Butterfly with the confidence of an 8th grader. And, it failed. Epically. Maybe the color lightened? But if it did it was ever so slight.

Wondering why we are squeezing a lime in the Sea Butterfly from The Painted Panda at the Epcot Festival of the Arts? Stay tuned… pic.twitter.com/kEd7uqIlTh

— AJ Wolfe (@DisneyFoodBlog) February 20, 2021

The Butterfly Pea Powder in this EPCOT Festival of the Arts staple doesn’t seem to care about a bit of lime. BUMMER. This experiment may have failed, but we’re still trying every hack we can think of with Disney snacks so stay tuned to DFB for the latest!