Tea time

In keeping with my Summer of Botanical Experiments, I am testing out a variety of different herbal tea mixes. My knowledge level her is sub-remedial, so I’m trying out about a dozen different combos to see what I like.

Here are the four herbs I am combining. I purchased the butterfly pea flower because it is by far the funnest tea ingredient around, as you will see.

I used these little bags for my laboratory test tubes.

I always wondered why I had 500 tiny craft paper tags in the garage!

You wouldn’t believe how important it is to find the right size funnel for these little herbal projects. These silicone ones have a nice wide opening, so the chunky herbs don’t get stuck.

As blooms fall from the hibiscus tree, I save the petals in the coffee station drawer to dry out. I found my initial hibiscus tea recipes were too weak, so I am upping my number of petals for future tests. I use 3-4 whole flowers (5 petals on each flower) when I make a large glass of hibiscus iced tea, and I was only using 5 flowers for the hot tea.

I freeze dry and also air dry chamomile flowers. Here they are going into the air dryer.

Here’s how they look fully dried.

Here is what makes that butterfly pea flower so cool - its tea is blue! I really don’t know much about this plant - I think it grows viney like a morning glory or sweet pea - but I need to add that to my 2027 garden to check it out.

Its taste is just mild, maybe like a plain green tea. I always add one Splenda packet to teas.

Also cool - it changes colors (sometimes unexpectedly) when you mix it with other things. I added 3 drops of lemon juice, and voila - it turned purple! I’ll have to see if lime does the same thing or if it makes it more pink. Hibiscus can turn it bright red, but I may need to buy a few dried flowers of the more culinary variety of hibiscus to get it to do that.