Hello,
I like to use chocolate mint also the best in my iced tea. My neighbor loves to use my spearmint in there too. My neighbor loves my chocolate mint in there hot tea. I gave my other neibor chocolate mint in a pot and now she uses it all the time in hot tea and ice tea.
Hope this helps some
Lisa

Speaking of tea, Texas Monthly has an article on the growing use of Yaupon Holly (Ilex vomitoria) tea, talking about a new Texas company called Cat Spring Tea that sells Yaupon Tea. I'd heard of this use for Yaupon Holly leaves before, and know that the Native American tribes have used it for a long time. Since I have a Yaupon Holly plant, I've used it for tea...not going to stop buying regular black tea at the stores, but it IS good tea! Free tea from a native plant!
http://www.wildedible.com/wild...

so flavor?
do you add something to it or just holly?

Inquiring minds

Mints are always good to add to tea!

Tea is a great gift this time of year
Do you have a favorite recipe?

Well, I'll tell you, the tea mix I plan to try next..Recipe #1 on this site. I just need to find some orange extract for it. Sounds good, but of course, you don't know for sure until you taste it.
http://learningherbs.com/remed...

You don't need the orange extract. There are dried orange slices in the mix. If you want more orange flavor, zest a few oranges, dry the zest in your dehydrator and add the dried zest to the recipe.

I am reading a book on Homemade Sodas and it has a chapter on making herbal sodas.
Has anyone made herbal sodas?

Wow--I've never even thought of herbal sodas, although some of my favorite sodas have ginger or lemon flavors. Hmm.....something to think about.

I don't care for sodas, at all, because they are always (always) too sweet. Making your own one could control the sweetener, perhaps use stevia to avoid too much sugar. Let us know of any successes, with recipes!

Mindy--I love that you get us thinking about topics that we might normally consider. Thanks so much for getting these topics started

Most of the recipes use a simple syrup or honey to sweeten the sodas.
If you don't want to use refined cane sugar you can use Raw cane sugar, stevia or coconut palm sugar or any other type of powdered sweetener in place of the cane sugar.
For those calling for using honey you can substitute agave or one of the nectars such as apricot nectar.
To make any tea or fruit juice fizzy you just add seltzer or club soda to the syrup base.
You can also buy soda siphons to make your own seltzer.
I have tried a lemon verbena tea soda just adding the store bought seltzer to it. Works great and the flavor is still lemon verbena.
If I was going to use honey I would just infuse the honey with the herbs. This is much more beneficial than heating the mixture because heat destroys some of the nutrients in herbs.
If doing this method add your herbs to a pint jar then fill with raw honey. Preferably in a dark colored jar or put a paper bag around the jar. Sunlight destroys some of the benefits of honey so I wouldn't follow the instructions for doing this I've seen recommended just about everywhere to put it in direct sunlight without some means of blocking the sunlight from reaching the honey. I really don't see the need for putting it in sunlight anyway. Since all it really needs is a warm dark place to infuse for 4 to 8 weeks depending on how strong you want the flavor.

Linda you are most welcome to my thought provoking posts.
As a side note you can also use fruit to make soda.

I saw a new packaged tea at Sprouts...Traditional Medicinals Mountain Tea with Lemon Balm & Caraway. It actually contains one of the Sideritis spp., plus the Lemon Balm (leaf) and Caraway (seed). Package said there are 150 different species of that genus...most of them found in the mountains of Europe's Balkan Peninsula. BTW, the tea is delicious!

I am addicted to tea and coffee, my common drinks is "Toffee" (tea on coffee), coffee mixed with black tea, steep with bit of sugar.
We also drink;
- tea with addition of cinnamon leaves and cloves leaves.
- tea with lemon verbenas
- mints (mix of any mint spear-pepper-pineapple mint), steep with cinnamon leaves, cloves leaves and little of sugar (no (camelia) tea).

In the past I loves to add vanilla grass (Hierochloe odorata) to my tea. (Need to grow this again)

and whenever I have butterfly pea (Clitoria ternatea) blossom, we made "blue butterfly pea-mint tea". (mint+butterfly pea flower+ sugar).... it turns blue, or if you want purple just add lemon juice.
perhaps can add cinnamon or cloves, but I never tried before

What an interesting thread this has become !
I learn something new each time I come back to it.

I am growing an assortment of scented pelargoniums,
and I see that some make tea from the leaves.
I have not tried any yet.

Keep the ideas on herb sodas coming----should that be a separate thread ?

I'm jealous of the scented pelargoniums. They don't survive the extreme heat and humidity here. I try them over and over again with the same results.

Please let us know how the leaves do when you use them in tea?

I love tea. Unlike most Texans, I'm not a fan of iced tea, sweetened or otherwise.

Don't think anyone mentioned Pineapple Sage. Yum! Since I only have a small plant right now I feel a little guilty picking its flowers as many pollinators like it.

Not a criticism but just amazement at all of the recipes y'all have for teas. When I lived in Austin I had 2 very large herb beds. Every few days I'd grab a huge basket and pick of few of these leaves and a few of those. Go back inside, boil some water, and pack a tea ball with as many herbs as possible. Lemon balm, lemon verbena ( tied with pineapple sage as favorite), a little Texas tarragon (aka Mexican Mint Marigold), some thyme, some mint, some other herbs that I can't remember right now. What might seem surprising, at least it surprised me, a small bit of bay leaf.

Oh how I miss that garden. Sigh. Now I have to resort to adding a few leaves to store bought tea.

I'm glad someone said sage. That is absolutely one of my favorite teas. It is soothing to the stomach. I also enjoy lemon balm tea. Rosehip tea is really relaxing, too.

Welcome to NGA, Cheli.

What kind of sage do you use for tea? And do you combine it with anything else?

I love lemon balm. I'm actually killing one now that's on my windowsill. Hoping I can revive it.

Granted, I might have been hallucinating, but I could swear I was cruising down the packaged tea aisle and saw one that was just Lemon Balm. Didn't buy it because it was prior to the near death of my plant. And it was merely coincidence that I was on the tea aisle. I only shop at a few stores but have yet to see it again. Maybe I'll google it. Pretty sure it was one of the name brands. Hmm. Just occurred to me that when a friend and I were working on 'Operation Lavender Sachet', I did stop at 2 'natural foods' groceries that I never shop at. Maybe that's where I saw it.

Anybody put milk in their tea? I used to do that sometimes when I was drinking black or green teas. Now I only drink herbal tea and I think I'm going to make a cup right now,