Du57mi73 said:
valerian root... I just remember it smelling like dog food.
I remember it smelling like
used dog food :lol:
I like jiaogulan too, mostly the 'sweet' kind. Theres two kinds, bitter and non-bitter ('sweet' )
Other than a cuppa coffee in the morning I drink nothing but tea or home grown herbal tea, all beverages unsweetened. Tho if I'm doing a ceremony of a sort that I subdue sense perceptions for I only drink water after the cuppa.
My daily tea is usually a combination of two, a base and a odor/flavor component.
Favored base components are:
Lemon balm (most often)
Green Tea
Jiaogulan
Black currant leaves
even Grape leaves
Favored top notes are things like:
Thyme
Oregano
Sage
Lavender flowers
Rosemary
...I harvested a bunch of self-heal flower spikes for medicine this year, if not used as medicine it'll make a good base note, I've found that Salvia miltiorrhiza
leaf is rather variable in flavor and odor quality but can be useful as a tea and has half of the medicinal properties of the root. I've started growing dwarf coffee bushes so the coffee leaves might eventually largely replace store bought green tea.
For tea preparation I use an espresso machine, its very effective, I can put in just a small bit of herbs in the morning and blast it several times throughout the day getting six or eight cups.
As for the why, Its my considered opinion that soda and colorful drinks are horrible for the health and sweetened drinks of all types are not good for it either. For many people (myself included) that also applies to stevia as drinking of lots of sweet stuff promotes the habituation of consuming too much other sweet stuff, and it dulls the senses.
A variety of unsweetened herb teas delivers a continuous stream of varied forms of antioxidants, phytochemicals, and minerals without hurting the teeth, or blood, or bones.
