TEA FOR TWO, OR MORE

As a child I was only allowed to drink milk or water until the age of twelve, with a soft drink as a special treat during an occasional visit to town. My parents drank Bushell’s tea with their meals.

Nowadays there are multiple drink choices available for adults and children alike. One has only to walk into a supermarket to see rows of bottles and cans stacked high containing cordials, fruit juices and carbonated drinks. At the dairy counter there will be different sized containers of milk, in plastic or cardboard, offering a variety of flavours.

Move to the racks of tea and coffee and you will have a choice of roast coffee beans from all over the world. You can buy beans or ground coffee, some of it decaf. Usually in the same aisle it is possible to select dried teas in surgical dressings, as one of my friends once described the sachets commonly called tea bags. You will be confronted with brands and varieties from many countries.

It was on a trip to the USA in 1981 that I first encountered the powdered concoctions mixed with water which the local people called iced tea. Later, when I visited my German in-laws in 1990 I was offered a choice of herbal teas with the evening meal. These were always served as a hot tea.

In 1992 we moved to the Granite Belt to establish Das Helwig Haus B&B. Amongst our first visitors were Meg and Peter Stevenson with their children Darren and Belinda. During an excursion they discovered a herb farm and returned with several pots for my garden. One of these little plants grew into a Lemon Verbena bush.

Lemon verbena

The botanical name for this shrub is Alysia triphylla syn. Lippia citriodora from the family Verbenaceae. It has multiple uses, adding a delicious flavour to fresh fruit salads, summer drinks or punches. I’ve laid leaves to form an decorative base in an aspic jelly mold.  Commercially, its essential oil is used in eau de colognes. Leaves may be dried for drinking as tea in the winter or included in pot-pourri mixtures as a scented room freshener or placed in sachets amongst stored clothes.

Lemon Verbena tea

A few sprigs of fresh leaves may be steeped in hot water for a calming hot tea. For a jug of refreshing cold tea, place leaves in a large container and pour over boiling water. Drain off the resultant tea into a jug, tasting and diluting with added water if the tea is stronger than preferred. My husband ‘gilds the lily’ by placing a couple of slices of fresh lemon in his glass, adds ice blocks and pours the lemon verbena tea over his ice and lemon.

Cold lemon verbena tea

Lemon Verbena is a deciduous shrub, so I always try to dry some leaves for teas throughout the winter months.  The plant is propagated from cuttings, not seed.

Another lemon flavoured tea that I grow is Lemon Balm Melissa Officinalis. You may take cuttings or a rooted piece from an established clump. It has very fine seed and I find that plants appear voluntarily in my garden each spring. Again the leaves of this plant may be dried for pot-pourri.  I’ve also used them in salad dressings and chicken stuffing. A tea made from the leaves of Lemon Balm is supposedly good for cases of depression and anxiety.

Lemon balm

The Lemon Balm plant forms a tight clump about knee high and can make a most attractive edging to a vegetable garden.

Most people wouldn’t be without a mint plant or two in their gardens. I grow the Peppermint favoured in Germany for tea. Like all mints it grows from underground runners and spreads rapidly. I cut portions of my mint back to the ground regularly to keep the plant producing fresh shoots.

Peppermint

Peppermint tea aids digestion. I have read that after a rich meal like a Christmas Dinner one should combine equal quantities of peppermint, lemon balm and lemon verbena teas to settle the tummy.  As we celebrate Christmas in mid-summer when my herbs are fresh, this remedy for over-eating is at hand.

One tea in my garden that self-seeds profusely is the annual German Chamomile. It likes a friable sandy loam, seeds profusely each year and comes up like a weed towards the end of winter.

Chamomile daisies

Chamomile seedlings transplant easily and I often use them as edging for paths throughout my vegetable garden. The flowers are best plucked from the plant and dried. A small amount of this dried matter may be steeped in hot water to make a soothing bedtime drink as it is a mild sedative.  Because it has a slightly bitter taste I add a teaspoon of honey. The other thing I do is strain the tea through a fine cloth, as some of the seed material tends to irritate my throat

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

Book cover

To obtain my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email me at helwig@halenet.com.au The price is $33.00 posted to destinations within AustraIia. You may phone me on 07-4683 4227 if you wish to pay by credit card.

Internationally it is available on

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/