Tea time...

As you may remember I am a coffee drinker.  I have tried to LOVE tea but it is not mean to be.  As a young adult i had the opportunity and means to try all the Twinings teas. They smelled lovely, they tasted fine, but it was more of a duty that i drank tea. We used loose tea and tea bags. Brewed it by the china teapot or by the cup. I tried it with milk. I tried it with lemon.  I tried it without either. Sugar, honey, artificial sweetener.. with no sweetener at all.  i always got it down, but there was no real enjoyment. I never looked forward to that cup of tea. I drank it to accommodate tea drinking friends. Tea and I were not great friends... That is till i started to drink and actually enjoy the herbal teas.

My original next door neighbor, Helen K.,deceased now some 20 + years. First introduced me to the delight of peppermint and spearmint tea.  she had a nice row along her driveway of both mints.  Often when i visited and we chatted in the driveway, i ran my hands over the fragrant stalks.  her recipe was to take about 20 fresh cut pieces of one mint or the other (and i am partial to the spearmint for some reason),  rinse under cold water (to remove the bugs) and throw them into a big pot of boiled water. cover and let sit for the good part of the day. Remove the used pieces when the color is right, add sugar or honey, bottle up. the tea sort of made itself.  It smelled nice, it tasted nice. it was nice!

Since i was a long time patient at the Clymer health clinic, i got to shop in their little grocery store. all sorts of herbal teas grown locally and Celestial Seasonings tea was sold there, which became a house hold name for me.
http://www.celestialseasonings.com/ 
i have not tried as many teas as they sell.  But the ones i have tried have been enjoyable and i look forward to a later afternoon cup of tea and drink it into the evening.

coffee in the morning.  tea in the afternoon.
life in the country!