I grew up on tea, herbal tea. There were lots of herbal teas that we would drink, without anything else to enhance the taste. We would drink ginger tea, chamomile tea, peppermint tea, mullein, blue vervain, valerian, rosemary, red raspberry, cornsilk tea, spearmint tea, dandelion tea, lavendar tea, rosehip tea, pau d'arco tea, sassafras tea, red zinger, and may more. To be honest, some herbal teas are not the best tasting; however, others have fantastic flavor!!!! I still prefer to drink herbal tea before other options. For starters, they provide a host of medicinal benefits while I am enjoying something other than plain water. However, anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE my water, but mixing it up from time to time with herbal tea truly helps me.
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| Herbal teas in my cupboard today |
When I was young, my mom was strict with our diet. She did not let us have soda or Kool-aid, and we generally never had fruit juices outside of special occasions or on cereal (more on this at a later date). My mom made sure that we ingested nothing with caffeine, artificial coloring, or refined sugars. Yep, as you can imagine the neighborhood children thought we were very deprived, however, we were never sick. If we were thirsty, there were only two things that my mom would generally allow us to drink, water and herbal tea. Usually, the tea could not have anything in it, unless it was a stevia leaf for a hint of sweetness. However, in the summer time, we were usually able to get an okay from our mother to put honey in the tea, perhaps due to the nutritional benefits of honey and the tea while playing outside in the sun.
Like most children, we loved colorful drinks, and our go-to summer tea was Red Zinger by Celestial Seasonings. We would make gallons of this tea! Celestial Seasoning makes affordable herbal teas and blends. I especially love their zinger herbal blends. If you google Red Zinger, you will find that it is a blend of various teas, including Chinese hibiscus, wild cherry bark, West Indian lemongrass, peppermint, orange peel, lemon myrtle, and licorice. It has various medicinal properties, including lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, among other benefits to digestion and colds. Miraculously and despite the medicinal benefits, the neighborhood children drank this without any complaints. In fact, they seemed to love it!!!
So, if you are looking for healthy drinks that you can make at home for yourself or for your little ones besides the fruit juices, which generally can be highly caloric, or if you are looking for water flavorings besides Crystal Light or other highly chemical packets, you may want to try various flavorful herbal teas. Lavendar, peppermint, and sassafras, which tastes remarkably like root beer are great options. Many herbal blends are also good as well. You might be surprised about the added medicinal benefit you get with these teas in addition to the flavor. Do your research first to make sure that the tea you buy tastes great. For example, blood root tea and golden seal both have wonderful medicinal properties, however, the first sip may end your whole herbal tea experience.
So, today I was in the mood for red zinger, but I was all out! I was relieved to find that I had a fruit zinger sampler box from Celestial Seasonings. So, this time I chose black cherry fruit zinger with heaping tablespoon of raw organic honey...just because I could. I'm in tea heaven right now as I drink this blend while writing this blog. In this way, I feel as if I'm sharing it with you! I encourage you to enjoy some herbal tea next time you're in the mood for something besides water.
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| Enjoying some sweetened Black Cherry Zinger with ice! |
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