I’ve made my own mint tea and lemon verbena tea from plants in the garden for a few years now and it is so easy to do. Simply cut a sprig of the plant and place in boiling water in a mug, leave it for between 3 and 5 minutes, and there you have it. I like to have lemon verbena tea when it is warm as it has a refreshing citrus flavour and is light and fragrant. I like to have mint tea after a meal as it leaves a nice minty taste in the mouth, and I experiment with different types of mint all resulting in a slightly different taste.
Thanks to an article in The Garden magazine last year, I have added rosemary tea to my repertoire. It has a woody pine taste. Unlike the lemon verbena and mint teas, I can have rosemary tea made with fresh leaves all year round, so I’ve started to associate the taste with cooler days. You can make teas from various other plants in the garden such as lavender, chamomile, fennel, thyme and scented geranium. I call them herbal teas but they are technically an infusion or tisane as they do not contain any leaves of the true tea plant (camillia sinensis).
Whilst on holiday in New Zealand I tried kawakawa tea which has a fresh and slightly peppery taste. Kawakawa (Piper excelsum) is small tree which is native to New Zealand and is commonly found along the shores of New Zealand’s coast line with distinctive bright green heart shaped leaves. I liked the tea so much I tried to buy some to bring back home as a nice reminder of the holiday, but I really struggled to find any. During my last week, whilst in Auckland, I emailed a shop to see if they had any in stock. I was blown away by the response from Varna that although she didn’t have any in stock she could order some in especially for me. With thanks to Varna, I picked up the packet on my last full day in the country so I have a lovely reminder of the holiday, which had the additional benefit of being light to carry so didn’t cause any issues with weight restrictions on the flight. I don’t know why kawakawa tea isn’t more widely available and marketed for tourists. I like to have the kawakawa tea in the morning as I find the peppery taste helps to wake me up, and sometimes I add some manuka honey to keep the New Zealand theme going. A hint if you are lucky enough to travel to New Zealand is don’t buy manuka honey from tourist shops, go to supermarkets or other shops that the locals use as it is significantly cheaper.
Various herbal teas are said to have health benefits. I don’t make any comment on this – I just like the taste of certain teas.
