This weekend is what we have been waiting for throughout the cold, icy New England winter. Sunny skies and temps in the 80s with everything blooming and filling our environment with color. I feel joy swelling in my heart. I’m starting to think about iced tea and for me and my caffeine sensitivity, that means herbal.
My favorite herbal is South African Rooibos. I’ve written a little about it here and here. This morning’s tea is called Poire Creme, a green Rooibos decorated with sunflower petals and flavored with pear and creme.
I steeped it for 8 minutes in slightly less than boiling temp water. As the Rooibos and flower petals steeped, they seemed to be floating in an ethereal dance together.
We had a truckload of bark mulch delivered this morning. The threads of reddish Rooibos remind me a little of the big pile in the driveway. Guess what I’m going to be doing this weekend?
The red amber liquor greets me with a fruity aroma which carries on into the taste. I love the blend of tart fruitiness and creamy richness in the flavor. This tea would make an excellent iced tea. I prefer the “cold brew” method of making iced tea. Fill a large container with cold filtered water and add a tablespoon of herbal tea leaves for every 6-8 ounces of water. Let this mixture sit overnight in the fridge and then strain into another container the next morning. As these measurements will make a concentrate, you can add water and ice to taste. I prefer drinking the Rooibos concentrate just as is with some lemon or orange slices.
I’m enjoying my hot herbal cuppa with an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Simply substitute chocolate chips for the raisins in your favorite oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. Mmmm…
A thoughtful reader wrote to me this past week regarding my steeping times for Assam tea. I like to brew my whole leaf Assams for 5 minutes and he thinks that a 5 minute steeping time is too long and yields a bitter brew for him. That brings up a good point that it is important to experiment with steeping times to see what works best for you as everyone has different taste preferences. If a tea ever tastes bitter, that is a very good indication that it’s been steeped too long for you. Thanks, Bruce!
This morning I am off to look at more properties and then home to shovel bark mulch in the garden. Enjoy the weekend!
“Gardening is an instrument of grace.”
~May Sarton
Art and Tea 
Your tip on sub-ing choc. chips for raisins in oatmeal raisin cookies is a great one! I always find oatmeal-raisin cookies so inviting because the raisins look like choc. chips and then have a letdown when they aren’t. I have nothing against raisins or oatmeal-raisin cookies, in fact I enjoy them very much but not as much as when chocolate is involved. So great idea! Thanks for sharing the tip!
This produced another thought. It’s obvious you like chocolate and tea and photography. I have other friends who like the same. Is it coincidence or do these likes tend to go together?
I see you reference your teas coming from Upton. I’m a infrequent customer of theirs, placing an order 1-2x per year max. They have a great variety. How do you go about picking what to order from them. Do you have faves you keep reordering or do you continually branch out and try others? If you do, do you get their nice sampler sizes (love that they do that) or do you research based on description and reviews and go for it?
Thanks Bruce! One of my colleagues at work is very much into photography, too, and, of course, tea, so perhaps they do go hand in hand
I think that chocolate should be in its own food group. It’s that important. 🙂
I actually work for Upton Tea and have for many years so it was my love of tea from work and also my ability to obtain new and wonderful teas that got me into reviewing them on my blog. I strive for variety from all tea categories to give my blog readers the ability to read about and see all of the wonderful kinds of tea and herbals there are out there. Of course, I’m partial. I think that we have an incredible variety of great quality teas to choose from but I think that we go above and beyond that in that we strive for exemplary customer service. We really listen to our customers. I love talking to customers everyday about tea!
If you’d like to see me review a particular tea, please let me know.
Thanks once again for visiting and for your interest. I love connecting with other people who love tea!
I might go make some cookies! Mmmmm