One of the best things about making your own herbal teas at home is not only the flavour and benefits, but that it is fairly easy to do! It is much easier than heading to the store and back, and carrying in lots of plastic water bottles and juice containers that you have to haul out the trash later. It also gives us inspiration to grow many herbs at home, or buy fresh herbs more regularly, or to make sure our spice shelves have items like cinnamon sticks and cardamom.
Making your teas gives you the opportunity to experiment, get creative, and learn about yourself as it’s a chance to develop your own blends, catered to your own taste. Additionally, it’s also a healthy activity that can be shared with your children or roommates. It is helpful at any age to learn a bit of botany and never too late to form healthier habits. Keeping our immune system in balance always requires us to be fully and properly hydrated, so tea time is a healthy tradition that we can revive.
Normally, the tea is served with a light snack between 3:30 and 5:00pm. These snacks can be simple, ranging from thinly-sliced bread and butter or peanut butter sandwiches; to a few biscuits; nuts or crackers served with jams, honey or figs; perhaps toss in a few cheese slices or even olives if you prefer savoury flavours. You can even get fancy like Martha Stewart and dust off your tea set, and get a serving platter and little plates. Go for the delicate cucumber, dill, and cream cheese sandwiches with the crust cut off to impress your tea time guests.
It all depends on your own style and how creative or elaborate you want to make it, but keeping it simple might make tea time integrate into normal daily routine a bit faster. The point is, it has already been a long day, so open the pantry, see what you have and make some magic! What is great about tea time, is that it holds off the bored and hungry mouths lurking around in the home wondering what’s happening next, or what’s for dinner. This allows for time to meal-plan the dinner in less urgency… allowing for time to sort out what to cook for dinner, or deciding where to make a reservation, or where to order out and what to order.
You may be thinking: “Hot tea in the hot afternoon in the hot Caribbean?!” Well, there is a simple solution, if you pre-make your teas earlier, let them steep and then cool, then you can store them in the fridge as a variety of iced teas. Or you can also save any extra hot tea in the fridge for a few days. These become healthy choices of something to drink in the fridge all day. Put into single serving glass bottles and they become go-to drinks for the beach or to carry to work. But you can still have the evening tea time and opt for the iced tea and snack if you are not in the mood for hot tea that day. Just remember that refreshing, herbal teas offer numerous health benefits – from boosting our immune system, to keeping us hydrated, to making us fall asleep more easily.
Herbal teas are very easy to make at home. You can make herbal tea blends from both fresh herbs and dried herbs. Start by making a small amount first and adjust the ratio of ingredients to your taste. Some ingredients, like cinnamon sticks for instance, are stronger than others, so change the amounts slowly to keep the balance. If you make larger quantities of your dry tea blends, then store your blend in an airtight container that doesn’t allow light in.
HOW TO BREW
Choose your ingredients. You basically use about one teaspoon of ingredients per cup (think about the size of a normal tea bag). To brew, pour the boiling water into a saucepan with your ingredients inside. Like them steep for 5-10 minutes depending on your desired strength of flavour; you can give it a gentle stir. Remove the ingredients by straining through a metal strainer (plastic will melt) directly into you mug, cup or tea pot. Then serve with sweeteners such as sugar, honey or Splenda.
HOMEMADE HERBAL TEA RECIPES
1: Lemon, Ginger, Turmeric Tea for fighting common flu
- 1 small dash of turmeric powder, or a very small piece of fresh turmeric with peal off
- 1 teaspoons of lemon juice
- 1 small dash of ginger powder, or a medium piece of fresh ginger (peeled)
- 1 teaspoon of honey
2: Easy Basic Ginger Tea
Fresh, dried, pickled or powdered ginger tastes well in any form and in any dish or drink – especially in tea. Ginger tea is the only tea we absolutely recommend making with fresh instead of dry ingredients. Peel, wash and slice ginger into thin slices. Then add it to a small saucepan together with 1½ cups of water. Bring it to a boil and let it simmer for another 10-15 minutes. Strain, add honey and drink.
- 1 small dash of ginger powder, or the ginger slices
- A teaspoon of honey
- Toss in a slice of lemon or a squeeze of a lemon for some vitamin C
3: Mint and Lime
- A couple of washed mint leaves (or as many as you prefer)
- 1 teaspoon of lime juice
- 1 teaspoon of honey
4: Herbal Chai Tea
Nothing beats a cup of warm chai – in any season. This warm and soothing drink can be made with powdered or crushed spices. You can drink this as a black tea or by adding in milk and serve as a creamy chai.
- 1 tea bag of your preferred black tea
- 1 small dash of ginger powder, or a medium piece of fresh ginger (peeled)
- 1 inch of cinnamon bark (break a stick in half)
- 3 cardamom seeds or a dash of cardamom powder
- 1 clove
5: Cinnamon and Apple
Cinnamon and apple tea is true classic in the world of herbal fruit teas. You can make them from cinnamon stick and cinnamon powder, and with fresh and dried apple pieces. Remove the cinnamon stick to your liking – the longer it stays, the stronger it gets.
- 1 spoon of dried apple pieces
- 1 inch of cinnamon bark (break a stick in half)
Source: www.simplelooseleaf.com/blogs/news/herbal-tea-recipes
