Make Your Own Tea Blends

Making your own tea blends is easy, and you can do it with things lying around your kitchen.  Ok, you might have to buy a few things, but it's still pretty easy.  I like to make my own herbal tea blends I can have at night without worrying about caffeine keeping me awake.  It helps with digestion and is a nice treat to give yourself at the end of a long day.



This is the "recipe" for a honeybush tea with cinnamon, stevia leaf and dried lilies.

1 ounce honeybush tea
about a tablespoon of dried whole stevia leaf ground for a few seconds in a spice grinder (for sweetness without adding sugar)
half a stick of cinnamon bark, freshly ground in a spice grinder (not pulverized into a power but rather into smaller rice-sized pieces)
a handful of dried lily flowers also ground in a spice grinder

Instructions:
1) Mix all of the ingredients together.
2) Brew in a tea pot or with a tea strainer (1 teaspoon tea to a cup of boiling water).  Cover and brew 2-3 minutes then pout and enjoy!

*I realize these may be more obscure ingredients that you don't have lying around your apartment, so it's not a recipe so much as an example of what I did.  Other ideas for making your own tea: Try chopping up dried fruit or crystalized ginger and adding to your tea blend.

**You can also get loose-leaf green, black or white tea and toss in some chopped dried fruits, candied ginger, dried lemongrass, dried flowers, star anise, licorice root, dried mint,  or anything also you think might taste good.  Get creative with it and you might stumble onto something delicious.

*** If you ever cook with lemongrass you generally use the bottom 2/3 of the stalk.  Don't toss out the tops!! Chop them into small pieces, let them dry overnight and then use them in a tea blend. It will add a lightly citrusy taste that I find similar to Froot Loops (but I think I'm alone on that one).

****I got the cute containers from Ikea

*****If you add candied fruit then there will be sugar in your tea, so don't add stevia or your tea may become too sweet.

 Here's another tea I made with honeybush, anise seed, corn flowers, and dried apricots:

This final tea is honeybush, cocoa nibs and camomile flowers: