Monday, July 6, 2009

Summer Herbs and Tea

Recently someone brought me a bottle of herb flavored water that they purchased at the local organic food store. I thought the flavor (lavender mint)was great but it was missing something. Then it dawned on me that it was missing the tea! Dry herbs are typically blended with tea but fresh herbs are delicious in both hot and iced tea. When making iced tea, add the herbs when steeping the tea leaves and remove them before serving. Try combining fresh herbs with spices for a really special beverage. Here are some of my favorite combinations:

Black tea with mint and vanilla bean (split the vanilla bean and steep with the mint & tea leaves)

Green tea with basil and mint (basil and mint are delicious when combined!)

White tea with lemon verbena and fresh lemon rind

Oolong tea with lavender

2 comments:

JosieKat said...

Hey! I had a vanilla bean left over from a cake recipe so I steeped some of it with my english breakfast tea this morning & it was soooo good. Much better than tea flavored with vanilla. I am going to Penzy's to buy more so I can try it iced. Thank you for the good idea.

TeaBar said...

Oh, I love vanilla in both green and black tea. You are right, using a vanilla bean is so much better than vanilla flavored tea. I just steeped some cardamom with my oolong and it is also a winner!