If one has a thing for tea, one drinks it all day long and year long. One also develops the habit of mentioning one’s feelings about the leaves, casually, albeit repeatedly, to certain caring friends. To drive home the essential point of how one’s day is a tad bit more manageable when one can have a few pots of tea. 

So it makes sense that when I run out of tea a little while ago and was about to start my ritual complaints about how expensive these “leaves!” are, (you would think they were gold or something) my best friend surprised me with a few tea samples she brought from a trip to Thailand. Of course, I was delighted. 

Well, the thing is I go through the leaves a little too quickly and soon I had very little tea left again. Having gone over my budget for this month, I had been planning to be good and wait a little longer to get my stash, however, a nice little walk I went on a few days ago took me to the spice section of this shop where I found a delightful jar of whole lavender flowers (almost 30 grams) for $4! I was very pleased and bought it. Come on, it is not a bad price and one must not be silly and stick to awful things like budgets when one finds oneself so lucky to be staring at a wonderful bottle of beautiful and delicious looking whole lavender flowers. You know what they say about staring a gift horse in the mouth, well, I like to not be ungrateful. 

Right. I have been enjoying my lavender very very much and I could not resist making some blends with the little remaining teas India brought me. After making a few experimental blends I came up with a really good one that I like very very much. Since there’s really nothing going on with my summer, unless you count a lot of reading and applying for jobs intriguing, I have decided to share with you the delectable recipe for my wonderful wonderful (repetitions are quite necessary these days . . . for reasons that are yet to reveal themselves to me) spicy lavender tea. Here’s what you need:

lavender flowers (whole) + cloves (whole)  + black pepper (whole)  + lemongrass + 7 leaves ginseng (optional) + fresh ginger

Preparation for a small pot of tea (about sixteen ounces)

– bring water to boil
– add a tablespoon of lavender into a roomy tea strainer
– add two/three cloves to strainer
– add about four/seven black peppers to strainer
– add half a teaspoon of lemongrass to strainer
– add two/three leaves of ginseng to strainer (I care little for the taste of this tea but it blends well with lavender)
– add freshly sliced ginger to strainer

– put strainer into teapot
– pour hot water into strainer with teas until pot is almost full

– leave tea to brew for about five minutes 

and it is ready.

Drinking lavender is quite fun. It tastes delightful and one can pretend to be a field of flowers. A little tip, do not throw away the leaves after the first pot. It is good for another (slightly weaker) pot.

One more thing, if you mean to make a cold tea, just brew the tea in a cup with about three ounces of hot water for about ten minutes or so, then pour the concentrated tea into a pitcher with about 12 ounces of cold water and add your ice cubes.

Cheers!
Jane