Auggy

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A while back, the husband and I got a food dehydrator to make jerky. (The husband makes seriously awesome venison jerky.) When we first got it, we went a little dehydrator-crazy. If it was edible, we’d try to dehydrate it. Some of our experiments were more successful than others (I highly suggest dehydrated zucchini slices – they are potato-chip-level addictive.) But I knew we had gone too far when we dehydrated watermelon.

The dried watermelon bits were textured like Fruit Roll-Ups (which wasn’t bad) but the taste… it was melon and slightly sweet and very musky. I cannot adequately explain how musky it was. “Extremely” would be an understatement. It was perhaps how licking a male muskox would taste. Obviously, this was very weird to me and I found eating the dried watermelon distracting and unpleasant. After that experience, I decided to retreat back into dehydrating only jerky and zucchini and never think of the watermelon musk disaster again.

Until I drank this tea.

2010-06-13 15:07:01 -0400

195 °F / 90 °C

3 min 0 sec

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__Morgana__ 2010-06-13 16:14:05 -0400

A sad little story. So sorry. :-(

RachanaC (Rachel)-iHeartTeas 2010-06-13 16:26:42 -0400

What kind of dehydrator did you get?

Auggy 2010-06-13 16:33:21 -0400

Morgana, It was a traumatic moment in our culinary history. :)

RachanaC, We have a Nesco Gardenmaster. We liked it so much we got one for my dad. (He had a tendency of putting peppers in the oven to dry, then my mom wouldn’t know and would preheat the oven for something… Yeah, burned peppers is not a happy smell.) It does a fantastic job, even on meats (which our old dehydrator had issues with – not hot enough I suppose?)

Harfatum 2010-06-13 17:42:25 -0400

I love story reviews like this.

Angrboda 2010-06-14 02:41:12 -0400

I think I still have some of these flowers from Teaspring lying around. I once bought a couple of different ones because I thought it could be fun to experiment with in otherwise boring teas. I never got the hang of honeydew. It doesn’t taste like honey and it doesn’t taste like dew. The entire name is false advertising. Once again our tastebuds are aligned…

AmazonV 2010-06-14 08:58:53 -0400

oh no! :( and i do love this tea so but i can see how after that experience it would be an unpleasant thing

Auggy 2010-06-14 09:32:49 -0400

I do like fresh melon (though honeydew is probably my least favorite, I still like it), I guess since the sweet taste overrides any musk (which, obviously, I’m not a fan of). If there were a fresh melon tea, I could get behind that probably. Maybe.
Angrboda, Wonder Twin powers, activate! :)

katers 2010-06-21 22:16:25 -0400

So like… is there anything that is sweet and dehydrator safe? Now you have me curious. Boyfriend’s dad hunts deer all the time, and I’d kill to have some fresh jerky. I’ve never had it. Only store bought. But I’ve heard great things about it. Problem is, I can’t ever justify buying something that has one use, especially kitchen gadgets. So, is there anything that’s sweet that is dehydrate-able do you think? Or is it just better with salty things I wonder.

Also are the zucchinis crunchy or chewy?

Auggy 2010-06-22 10:26:38 -0400

Fresh jerky is awesome and you can flavor it depending on your likes- spicy, sweet, a little of both… As far as other non-meat things, dehydrated strawberries are delightful. We usually end up eating about half of them before they are fully done dehydrating. Sweet potatoes and zucchini aren’t salty (unless you add salt) but they don’t really qualify as sweet like the strawberries, I suppose. And they are both crunchy/crisp. And tasty.

katers 2010-06-22 10:38:55 -0400

That sounds awesome. :) Thanks. I need to try this out sometime.

Welcome to Steepster, an online tea community.

Auggy

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