raindrop tea

Peach Pie Tea

2-3 tablespoons dried peaches
1/2 t. cinnamon (crushed bark preferred)
4 cloves
1/4-1/2 t. ginger
pinch of lavender

This tea is one of my favorites. Spicy, lightly and naturally sweet, fruity, and calming. Yum.

raindrop tea

Sleepy Tummy

Equal parts:
chamomile
mint
ginger

a pinch of lavender

Steep for at least 4 minutes and enjoy!

raindrop tea

A variation on my favorite sleepy time tea: the recipe has the combined benefits of being a stronger sedative for us humans while (after giving kitty a nibble) causing laughs as Elijah runs around the house, scratching and sliding and chasing and rolling.

Perfect after grading and drinking coffee until 6 p.m. to use to mellow out and sleep well.

Elijah's Tea

2 T. chamomile
1 pinch of lavender
1/2 t. catnip
1/2 t. rosehips

I drank this last night, fell asleep in a cocoon of blankets, and didn't budge until my alarm sounded this morning (and then reset my alarm for an hour later because I didn't have students until 10:30 today!).

raindrop tea

Here's a new, random column for my blog, which I will hopefully update once a week and that will celebrate the title of my blog, Raindrop Tea.

Here's today's sip of herbal tea or tisane with memories of the summer harvest, the energy of the sunshine, the fall of the rain, the colors of my garden.

2 t. chamomile, hand picked and dried from my garden.
a pinch of dried lavender from a local lavender farm.
dried organic peaches, hand picked from Sauvy Island
dried blueberries, also hand  picked from the island

This is tonight's tea, designed to be a naturally sweet sedative that will send us off into dreamland after a day of long hours and hard, good work.

project chamomile and more about tea

After several attempts, including a start that bit it, I finally, from seed!, got my chamomile to grow. And while gone, the plant tripled in size. One of my daily gardening tasks is harvesting, which my darling friends did for me while gone. Every day, I pick the flowers, preferably the ones with the plumpest centers, and put it on newspaper to dry. After drying for two days, I put it into a glass jar. How much will I be able to harvest at this rate by the end of production? I'm hoping I won't have to buy any chamomile all winter long. Fingers crossed.

Yesterday, I made some delicious iced tea, like surprisingly delicious. I didn't try any until this morning, and was wowed. I didn't measure well, but here's a rough recipe:

I steeped two sprigs of fresh lemon verbena for about 10 minutes. Then I added two tablespoons of dry, loose leaf jasmine. A couple of minutes later, I added about 3 or 4 tablespoons of organic chung oolang (loose leaf black tea) and let that steep for 3 or 4 minutes. Then I filtered it, added local honey, and diluted the tea in a large pitcher with filtered water. Yum! My family drinks a lot of iced tea, so I gained a renewed taste for it while I was back home.

Dream Catcher

 

Apple peppermint tea

1 t. peppermint

1/2 t. rosehips

1 T. chopped dried apple

1/4 cinamon stick

pinch of lavender

Sip and luxuriate before bed. Sweet dreams.

sexy tea

Sexy Tea: try with cream and honey or plain-jane. Either way, sexy.

1 part dried cherries, chopped
1/2 part vanilla bean
1/4 part cinamon
1/4 dark chocolate

Steep for 15 minutes in enough water to cover the ingredients but not enough water for the pot.

Add 2 parts assam tea and more hot water. Steep for 3-4 minutes.

pinwheels

Here's a cute little craft project to try at the next lady's craft night that, with the right paper, would be lovely hanging in windows. Maybe I'll work on it during craft night on Thursday, although I'm also working on a braided rug, applique curtains to hang below the living room table that holds the turntables and mixer, a knitted scarf, and an embroidery/cross-stitching project that I designed myself. All these intentions and ideas! Creativity! Joy! Productivity, tomorrow.

But seriously, tonight, I'm going to finalize my seed plans. I think, as of now, I have about 100 packets too many picked out. Also, I've been eating poorly of late, so I'm dreaming of kale and quinoa and yams and some yummy concoction of sorts for dinner and then some nourishing tea.

My latest and best recipe: Drink to calm the nerves, aid digestion, soothe anxiety, and induce sleep.


1 tsp. organic german chamomile
1 tsp. peppermint
1 pinch of lavender

Steep 5-10 minutes

Examiner article: tea for Christmas

I just published my first Examiner article in over a month (lost password, etc.); it's a brief introduction to blending tea with a recipe included. Check it out. I will be trying to keep my blog and the Examiner site more up-to-date moving forward.

daily tea

This morning started with the concoction of a sore-throat-be-gone! tea. I need to look for some additional ingredients when I go to the store tonight, but here's what I consumed a whole pot of (except for the one cup I shared with my boyfriend):

sore-throat-be gone! tea: (in order from most to least)
rose hips
hibiscus
peppermint
raspberry leaf
cinamon

This brewed into a lovely, fruity red tea that sated me for a while.

I've been finding thousands of amazing, inspiring blogs lately, filled with amazing links and photographs of textures and patterns in nature, embroidery and typographic stitch work by Evelin Kasikov, interior design, sock puppets, felt animals, applique, and all things artistic and crafty and motivating. After scouring these blogs all afternoon yesterday, I went  home to collage my sketch book, finish designing a costume for BRC, and work on some embroidery. I am mad. I am filled with lust for knowledge. I want to know: How do I make that?! I feel more and more compelled to learn and create. It drives me, especially through these long nights and short cloudy days when I can't garden in the sunshine.

Tonight, I learn to knit. But really, I am currently more interested in embroidery like that of Kosikov, applique, and the blending of creative form and function.

Current projects:
braided rug (almost done!)
"reading is sexy" embroidered bookmark
applique curtains to hang below turn tables
applique grocery store bags...guerilla style?
"dome sweet dome" cross-stitch pillow
costumes
collage desk
paint bedroom and craft/art/spare room
and, I just started designing a new style of embroidery/cross-stitch influenced by Kosikov

Here's my collaged sketch book.

I'll see where this takes me. I have a feeling I'm at the beginning of an endless, twisting, narrow road with vistas only limited by my imagination.

Crafty Christmas

For Christmas this year, tea and catnip-stuffed felt mouseys, hand-sewn. The pleasure of medicinal, delicious herbs, spices, flowers, and teas for feline and human alike.

Last summer at Burning Man, this lovely girl named Melody, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and elfish, made our campmates and guests tea that she'd blended and brewed herself. Drinking it made me feel nourished, spirited, ready for a night of adventure and dance. Since then, stomach troubles and a desire for nourishing liquids awakened my memories of Melody's tea and curiosity. Why not blend my own? I'd already done a lot of reading, through my interest in gardening, about herbs and their medicinal value. Thus, the birth of my new daily habit: homemade tea. As gifts, I've made Dancing Tea, Tum-Tum Tea, and Elijah's Sleepy Time Tea. Blending tea, for me, is like composing poetry, playful, creative, but also deliberate, with purpose.

Tonight's tea: green, jasmine, and orange peel. This tea was, admittedly, a bit of a mistake from my Christmas blending. I didn't label the bag completely and discovered that what I thought was assam tea was actually green. Oops, beginner's mistake. Still, yum.