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Mmmmmmmmmmm! I got jasmine pearls from Stephanie from an unknown source. I am a sucker for jasmine tea. This one was very light. But not bitter what so ever. The jasmine strength was perfect! Watching these little guys steep was so amazing. They were so pretty as they opened. Not only is this a tasty tea but an entertaining one too ha ha.
Thank you for this sample!

Laoshan Black Chocolate Genmaicha (Verdant) + Special Dark (Mandala)

I wanted puer blend this AM, but all my blends are cinnamon ones and that didn’t sound like what I wanted. So I looked through my cupboard and saw the most obvious of pairings in the whole wide world.

So dark and rich and chocolaty with some earthiness to balance it out. I didn’t get the proportions quite right, but I don’t think I could really go wrong either. If you have both and want a rich treat, this is for you!

School hasn’t even started yet and our house has come down with a minor cold. Nothing too bad, just annoying that its the last day before school starts and we’re all sick. So I mixed a few teas together to make an ideal healing tea in my opinion. I started with After Dinner Ginger from sTEAp shoppe. It’s got ginger, lemon, and chamomile. Then I added winter fire guarusa from butiki to get some spiciness and clear headedness. Once steeped, I added mazuka honey. It is so tasty! This will be my go to cold season tea.

This morning I had coffee, and there’s not really any place to brew tea in the area I work (no really, it’s a 5 minute walk to the filtered water and nice kettle), so I went for bubble tea.

Lemon “red” tea with lemon jelly.

Yummers. I usually get stuff 1/2 sweet when I get jelly or tapioca, as the additives tend to be rather sweet. I didn’t, but it’s still good. Super strong tea, fresh lemon juice, chewy lemon jelly, yay!

I need to find a recipe for the flavoured jellies so I can make them and add them to my iced teas at home. So good.

Missouri has snow. In November. Not unheard of, but certainly unusual! About an inch since this morning—the kind that sticks to vegetation but pretty much melts off the street.

With such dire weather predictions coming, we have hustled in our mint plants that are still somewhat viable, as well as a planter of lemongrass that grew surprisingly huge in a very short time. I had already harvested and dried one bundle; snipped it up and tried it steeped for the first time yesterday. Oh, my! Smooth lemony goodness with a lot more body than I had expected from a straight-up tisane.

I have some dried lemongrass (it’s rather old, mind you) from our health food place and the quality improvement with the fresher dried grass is exponential. Glad I rescued what was left so I can harvest and dry more!

I had never heard of cinnamon basil until my husband brought one plant home from the nursery. We’ve had rainforest weather for several weeks now, and it appears to love the steam. And sure enough, it has a bit of sweetness in with the spicy that evidently earned its name.

So…I clipped a nice, leafy 6-inch sprig from the plant, stuffed it in a jar with an equally leafy spring from our backyard tulsi (also loving this wet heat wave), filled with cool water, and chilled. Result: clean, crisp cinna-lemonosity to wet my whistle with. This may become a fridge standard the remainder of the summer.

Southwest Missouri is having August weather in June, which in tea lingo translates to, “I don’t care as long as it’s cold.” Iced tea just doesn’t deserve a lot of fuss in my world, because you guzzle it rather than taste it.

However, I departed from that philosophy yesterday due to a lovely pot of Thai basil growing on my back step. Couple teaspoons of dried lemongrass and several sprigs of the basil in a mason jar. Gave it a 30-40 minute head start in the sunshine, then removed the lemongrass and left the basil when I ’fridged it.

Neither flavor was decidedly strong, but it was sharp and refreshing and cooling to the mouth. Forget the quart jar—next round, I’m going for a gallon :)

My applemint is going bananas :) It’s been cool and rainy, with just enough sun in between to make it grow visibly. Practically.

And as every bone, fiber, joint, and brain cell in my weary carcass aches (moving to new offices at work)…I’m hoping that a cup with generous spoonfuls of mint, chamomile, and St. John’s wort will melt what’s left of me into a sleepy puddle.

Orange mint is more fruity than it is minty. It’s doesn’t taste like orange juice or orange rind, but you can catch the similarities, especially with a good long (8-10 min) steep. Tossed in a little St. John’s Wort for a weekend winder-downer. Tasty, and more to come: looks like nearly all last year’s potted mints fared well under the mulch. Hubby wants to add strawberry mint to the menagerie as soon as we can find it at the nursery.

Temperate rain in the forecast caused us to pull out our potted mints that we had mulched and tucked on the edge of the carport to snooze out the winter. Removed the mulch to see what fared well…best out of the batch was the catnip. The cats found it immediately, and due to my incompetence with a camera phone, you all missed some of the funniest feline gyrations—they rubbed their muzzles in it, practically turning their heads 360 degrees to wallow in it to full effect; Tazo tried to climb in the pot…all to say, I got to steep me some of that when it matures this spring!

Inspired by their enthusiasm, I’m enjoying a sweet and fresh strong tisane with applemint from last summer’s backyard crop. Come on, warmth and sunshine!

Chamomile laced with fresh chocolate mint just snipped off the stem. Love it…all the benefits of chamomile with deep minty goodness that beats the chamomile-iness into submission. Delicious. I’d write more but there is a black cat that has shifted into autumn cuddle mode. Cuteness wins.

Wouldn’t you know it…threw together a second steep of last night’s tulsi, some chamomile, and a spoonish of dried apple mint from the back porch, ended up with a cup of evening nirvana (I’d swear there was some vanilla voodoo going on in the background)…and paid absolutely no attention to the proportions or steep time so I may never be able to replicate it again!

Apple mint is much better dried than it is fresh, but the leaves are fuzzy instead of smooth like regular mint, so it looks almost a little moldy in the jar. In case you need to know.

Have any of you tried pineapple mint? It’s the prettiest one growing by the back door; ruffly green leaves with creamy white edges. But I still can’t decide what it really tastes like. Stuffed a jar full in the fridge with one decaf Red Rose bag to make it tea-y, left it overnight. It’s gentle and satisfying, but I can’t determine if it’s “pineapple” or “unclassified somewhat citrusy” mint. Ah well, it was lovely to come home to a gentle, quiet cup of anything after a mind-blowingly plate-juggling workday.

Too many cookies and student helpers that sneak me chocolate when I can’t leave my little charges. (I pick ‘em well!) Plus, hubby taking advantages of my afternoons off for ice cream dates. Who am I to refuse? But I’m starting to feel the effects of sugar bloat, so I’ve made myself a little calendula-orange mint after-dinner steep. Orange mint is pretty mild, but does add a little freshness to the calendula. This would probably be more refreshing chilled.

Tonight’s blend: pineapple mint and basil. Works well, but it’s very mild…loooooooong steep time and keep those leaves in.

Of all the plants in our back porch mint-speriment, the chocolate mint has flourished the most. It’s put out more tentacles than a kraken, so we’re trying a (Little Shop of )Horror-ticultural mutation: Set a pot next to it, anchored a couple of tentacles under an inch or so of soil, and are waiting for it to take root before cutting it loose and separating the pots. We’ll see…

Also, of the varieties of mint we’ve cultivated, this one makes the best stand-alone tisane—the chocolate flavor is truly and noticeably present, and though it’s mild, it does taste like mint tea instead of minty water. Come on over and I’ll cut you some sprigs.

OK, this is the last of the homegrowns I had not yet tried—pineapple mint. It’s interesting: leaves are thick and a little fuzzy, long olive-green ovals with cream-colored edges.

Again, using a bag of Red Rose decaf as the backdrop—I think it’s a winner because there are no strong tea flavors to compete with the mint so I can get a fair impression of the flavor profile. I’m not entirely sure I’m getting pineapple out of it, but there is a fruity-something happening along with the mint.

Wish y’all were here to share with. The applemint has gone bananas; almost growing faster than I can prune. I have several large clumps drying upside down in the garage. It’s beginning to look like a tobacco barn.

Whoops, forgot this category existed, and with all our recent homegrown experiments, I could be filling it up. We bought two chocolate mint plants from local nursery; one for a bed in front, the other in a back porch pot. Now that they are flourishing, it is clear there are two varieties. One has long, pointed leaves; the other has leaves that are more spade shaped.

We’re drinking long and pointy tonight, with a bag of Red Rose decaf tossed in to give the cup a little density. If you’ve never tried chocolate mint, it is well worth the $3.49 experiment—steeped straight up, you can detect the essence of chocolate. With some tea to give it a little heft, you can almost taste an Andes mint.

Weary, worried day left my neck and back crunkled like a wad of aluminum foil.

Thoughtful husband welcomed me home with a Yankee Candle Macintosh candle already burning and encouragement to sit, stare, drool, and relax. After all of the above, I combined a teaspoon of the no-name cut-leaf green tea Fox Farm sells in bulk and a touch less of the wonderful chocolate mint that k s recently shared. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! I think chocolate mint could make grass clippings taste special. The Hershey-bar goodness that is highly noticeable when you try it solo is muffled by the green tea, but still a wonderfully refreshing, un-crumpling treat.

OK, k s, you have done it now: created a chocolate mint addict. I had a quart steeping in the fridge to relax with this afternoon and am already trying to figure out where we can grow us a patch on the homestead. This from someone who kills marigolds.

Thought some of you might like to post to this generic category, something like the Chance Combinations that gets a fair amount of traffic.
Feel free to edit the description as you see fit.

In this case, courtesy of k s and company, we’re enjoying homegrown chocolate mint. You’ll have to ask him for the particulars of the variety, but you better believe this is pleasant! Cold steeped a couple of teaspoons in the fridge on a hot afternoon. There is definitely something in the baseline of this tisane that has a Hershey bar aftertaste. So I ate a Hershey bar with it. It just had to be.

Had to reach for this old friend again tonight. I meet the endocrinologist for the first time in the morning, and get my first dose of testosterone (intra-muscular injection, and I’m needle phobic! well, better get over it asap, i’ve got weekly IM injections from now til I’m dead. Worth it though!), so needless to say I’m SUPER anxious.

My heart is beating out of my chest, my hands are shaking so much I had to fill my cup barely halfway to prevent spilling it all over myself. I’m excited to finally be getting what I’ve wanted for so many years, but terrified that it’s going to turn friends and family against me.

Topped up my cup and the shaking is slowly calming down. It’s crazy how emotions can affect you physically, and so dramatically at that!

This is my “emergency kit” tea, the one I keep tucked away in my “emergency kit”, a box with a number of different things that I pull out when I’m having issues with depression, or anxiety.

Had a pretty nasty anxiety attack before bed, but calmed down enough to get into bed. Had some nightmares and woke up in hysterics, which then turned into a full blown panic attack. Running on auto pilot and in one quick motion I leaped out of bed, pressed the button on my kettle, pulled out a pre-filled sachet of tea, and tossed it into a cup, inhaling deeply while the water heated. Poured the hot water, took a sip, and instantly everything that had been on my mind melted away.

Still can’t quite calm down enough to sleep, but at least I can breathe again!

Tea of the morning…..

I have had this for several mornings of late. As I drink it, I just keep calculating in my head how much I can blend up before all my ingredients are gone. I’d say that is a pretty obvious indication that it is one of my favorites. (And I think I will run out of the Assam first, but I am hoping not to buy any tea for a few months.)

What this packs is a morning touch of briskness with a roasty chocolate and smooth finish. I completely feel like the queen of something or other while drinking it, even if it is just ’Mom’s taxi service’.

Usual teapot method.