Teas

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Re: Teas
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Post # 11
I love putting green tea, cloves, lemon, black pepper and honey together. Seriously, it sounds strange, but tastes good.
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Re: Teas
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Post # 12
Do you mean drying your own herbs to make tea leaves, or combination of tea blends?
If you want to dry your tea leaves; its quite similar to drying herbs to make your own dried herbs for cooking, and its very simple and there are several methods too;
1. The easiest method I usually use, lay them single layer on to an oven tray and place them in the oven for several hours at very low heat, below 100*C, so around 80 to 90*C (175*F) will do, it does take a little trial and error but start low and keep an eye out.
2. The most modern method would be to buy a dehumidifier and it comes with its own instructions. If you like to dry a lot of herbs or fruit peels etc. this is great, you'll get your moneys worth soon.

3. More traditionally you could collect a bundle and tie them at the stem leaving the leaves and flower sprayed out (leave herbs whole and when they are dried you can chop them up into smaller sizes if you like). Hang it UPSIDE DOWN in a sunny and well aerated space. The subtle fragrance of drying flowers like lavender or herbs like sage and mint is quite pleasant. :) You can also hang them outside, but to protect it from the elements and maybe animals, cover them with a brown paper bag or thin muslim cloth.

If you're not interested drying herbs to make tea and actually you meant tea recipes. First I would suggest finding a reliable bulk herb and tea store, you can find some good ones online. The larger the variety the better. The world is at your finger tips!! You can even start a section in your book of shadow for tea recipes, such as medicinal purposes, taste, caffeination etc.
Some basic teas and herbs I usually keep in the pantry:
(Some can also be used in cooking so win win)
Black Teas:
Assam (basic black tea)
Keemun (quite fragrant and light)

Dried Fruits:
Lemon peels (or any citrus peels)
Berries, cranberries, gojii berry, elderberry
Apple
Apricot, peach
Dates

Herbs and roots:
Ginger, tumeric
Mint (peppermint, spearmint and there are some really interesting newer species of flavoured mints)
Rose petals
Lavender
Hibiscus
Liquorice (taste's pretty bad but have many medicinal uses, if you find a good blend to disguise the strong herbal flavour please share it)
Chrysanthemum Flowers
Chamomile
Lemon grass
Sage
Corn silk (the hairy stuff from corn stalks, very good the kidney, you can just clean and boil the fresh stuff you get from the corn or buy it dried)
St. John Worts (really good as a natural antidepressant)


These are just some suggestion from the top of my head, they're great starters and most you can find either in your pantry already, dry it yourself or a well stock herbal section of a whole food shop, and if you really can't find any you can go online.
Go nuts, just tasting and smelling different teas. Share with us some recipes you discover too :)



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Re: Teas
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Post # 13
My favorite would have to be green tea with whole coffee beans, ground maple leafs, and a tea spoon of sugar per cup.
Tastes nice with blackberry leafs too.
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