Herbal Tea Blends How-To

Buying tea is fun: exploring new flavors and brands that may help ease symptoms or simply taste good. What’s more fun is making one’s own tea blends!

My garden has mint, lemon balm, lavender, chamomile, parsley, rosemary, calendula, and many other cooking herbs. These are the ones usually being made into tea.

Most of my arsenal is pictured here. I have a serious love of vintage tiny crocks and they are perfect for storing dried herbs.

Choosing which vessel to drink from and deciding where to place the herbs is the hardest part of the process! I have a lovely tea strainer that sits atop a mug, and I also have a muslin cloth bag that is nice for a whole pot of tea. Obviously, I chose the stainless steel tea strainer + my favorite poppy mug.

My favorite blend is mint, lemon balm, and a bit of lavender.

Sometimes I enjoy just mint, I think that’s my second favorite.

Chamomile by itself is amazing, but I like it with mint. Also with lemon balm.

Calendula + mint; lavender + calendula; parsley + mint; basically anything mixed with mint is delicious and soothing.

I have “modeled” some blends based on purchased teas I enjoyed but didn’t care for the price tag. Those usually include licorice root because of its natural sweetness. They require more effort, so I’ll usually mix a larger batch to enjoy over a longer period.

Rosemary is best when fresh and is super strong. I enjoy it mixed with honey and chamomile!

In fact, I like most herbal teas with a bit of honey. I think their flavors come out more fully with some added sweetness.

All herbs either came from my garden, or were bought in bulk at my local herb supplier.

The honey in the coconut jar was purchased in bulk also!

As far as how much to add to each cup, it’s a personal preference, and can also be based on how fresh the herbs are + how finely cut they are. I generally use about one tablespoon because I like a good flavor. Definitely use less if you are using a true tea like earl grey or black.

What are some of your favorite tea blends?

Peace and love,

Kristan

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Autumn Harvest

A basket full of butternut squash. Some weren’t fully ripe, but the plant was dying back so I decided to cut all the fruits and bring them inside. At least I have a few that will last me a couple months. These keep for a good amount of time and taste excellent roasted with some fresh herbs from the garden.

Winter squash is fairly easy to grow; try to stay on top of any squash bugs by picking off the eggs that are laid out in beautiful patterns on the underside of leaves. I really enjoy less common varieties, but the butternut was most prolific this year. Uchiki Kuri got attacked by bugs and I didn’t ever get a sprout from the Hokkaido Stella Blue seeds that were planted. Zucchini always does well in my area, but its abundance can sometimes be more of a curse than a blessing. 🙂

Peace and love,

Kristan

Backyard Reveal

We have somehow let the rogue sunflowers take over the back garden space. The flowers are beautiful, peaceful, and support the local ecology. All sorts of bees are constant visitors during the sunflower bloom time, and when seeds start to become ripe, finches are ever present and full of song. However, the intentionally planted crops didn’t fare so well due to the lack of sunshine and water. 

Before the great clearing of 2017

Next year I’ll be pulling any sunflowers in this area, but they have had a good run. I’ll let them go wild in another place.

The great reveal! There’s a building back here!

Now I can see the beautiful boxes and garden bed my husband built! I generally plant early spring crops in these boxes: peas, potatoes, kale, radishes, and green onions have all lived here. The climbing plants in the back are clematis ❤️.

Happy fall gardening / culling.

Peace and love,

Kristan