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First experiment with blueberry-bergamot: halvsies; Tropical Tea Co. Blueberry Black and jacquelinem’s Earl Grey Melange, which is bits and bites of miscellaneous varieties of EG. In the fridge overnight.

Plausible, but came out just a touch more bitter and perfumey than I had hoped. Won’t stop my drinking it—it’s cool and not unpleasant, but I think I’ll back off the EG a bit next time.

One drinks red raspberry leaf infusion for the medicinal value, not for the flavor. It isn’t undrinkable on its own, but definitely has a tree-leafy taste to it.

So, since we’ll be imbibing it pretty heavily over the next week or so, a little experimentation seemed to be in order.

Put the raspberry leaf in a stuff-your-own paper filter (it clogs up brew baskets) and tossed in a bag of Celestial Seasonings True Blueberry. Voila. The blueberry neutralizes the leafy flavor of the raspberry leaf; the raspberry leaf neutralizes the hibiscus that runs a little strong in the True Blueberry. Win-win.

Win-win-win, if you add the fact that I’m sipping it in the patio glider on a sunny pre-vening (thank you Dr. Cooper) with Tazo snoozing with one paw draped over my leg to make sure I don’t leave. Simple blessings.

Celestial Seasonings Sweet Apple Chamomile + a second steep of Shang Tea’s honeysuckle white = one fragrant, sweet cup of fruit-and-flower tastiness. Delicious. Even more so looking at a freshly mowed backyard with a scrappy, perky little cat lounging in the scraps of late afternoon sun.

Couldn’t you just use a month of moments like this?

Tazo Calm + Shang Tea Chrysanthemum = sweet little bouquet to assure me that it IS spring. Really.

The chrysanthemum is thick and silky; the goodies in the Tazo sweeten it a bit; the fresh planty-ness of the chrysanthemum overcomes the annoying sweetness of the licorice. Warm cuppa in my hand; warm laptop on my shivering legs. Everybody’s getting along.

Life has done a number on our family this week—sick mama, medical trauma, severe storm drama, (I’ll throw in commas and llamas and pajamas, too, just because they rhyme).

Thus and therefore, I am in dire need of a full night’s sleep to have the energy to face more of the same. Tulsi to relax + chickweed to replenish whatever nourishment I’ve neglected to intake this week. About 1/3 of the chickweed to 2/3 tulsi. The spiciness of the tulsi keeps the chickweed from tasting too weedy and barky.

For a lark, threw some black peppercorns in with some aging Belgian Chocolate rooibos (Metropolitan, I think). Couldn’t taste the peppercorns separately, but I think they added a little depth of flavor and warmth, rather than heat, that brought this oldie but goodie back to life.

Homebrew experiment. Took a wild chance with roughly equal parts lemongrass, coconut, and toasted sesame seeds…a hat-tip to H&S Bangkok Blend.

Plausible. I liked the sesame part of each sip best, which makes me wonder if there’s something else it would jive with a little better.

Brought my newly stashed stash of Shang Chrysanthemum White home and tried another cup, this time topped off with a dollop of tulsi. Bingo! The lemony tulsi neutralizes the (mulchy? leafy?) dried flower taste and makes for a light, warm, springy tasting cup.

Besides, since these are both purported (and I can vouch for the tulsi) to be serious anxiety relievers, I ought to be in Happy Land in a very few minutes!

Putting this in the “chance” category since it’s a home-blend from a co-worker. Thoughtfully given to me as a thank you for turning her on to the tea world.(Like that was an inconvenience ;)

In this case, the student has far surpassed the teacher. She added raspberry flavoring to a good Assam black tea base; I think there’s a little vanilla in the background as well. Results remind me strongly of something in the Marco Polo/Tower of London flavor family.

Adds a little lilt to a gray, gloomy, gusty morning!

I have often said that tulsi is my friend; but I think I’m getting close to BFF’s FOREVER with little hearts drawn around it.

Fighting off a wickedly sore throat/swollen tonsil last night, made a strong cup of tulsi with lemongrass (which didn’t affect the flavor; tulsi is pretty strong) and within an hour, the excruciating swallowing pain subsided significantly. A little surfing confirmed that tulsi is purported to be effective for oral and throat care. (Taking into consideration the effusive miracle-drug language you see on some websites.)

Not proclaiming myself cured just yet, but chalk up another one for this lemony-clovey stuff!

Recycled Upton Amgoorie Estate Assam leaves (rich, dark, malty) with a half teaspoon of Lover’s Leap Ceylon from Capital Teas to brighten and freshen it up.

Result was a nice little breakfast tea; just not overly strong. Not bad for a half-awake schlep to the kitchen and half-hearted “eh, that’ll do” morning alchemy.

Ever since I read the reviews of Verdant’s Chocolate Chamomile Curiosity Brew, I’ve been playing around with base ingredients to see if I can concoct something similar on my own.

Tonight, we did equal parts Belgian Chocolate Rooibos, cacao nibs, and chamomile. Wasn’t bad, made some sensory synapses fire (been brain-dead all week), but next time I think I’ll back off the chocolate a bit. (Back off chocolate? Am I nuts?)

Seems to me, and I’ve logged this before, that tulsi, with its lemony personality, is a perfect match for blueberry. (Though I did a quick search and haven’t found any commercial blenders who agree with me enough to package the combo.)

Tonight was no exception; I had a bitty-bit of aging Blueberry Cocktail from SpecialTeas, half-and-halved it with plain no-name tulsi from my local import grocery, and it was just lovely. A good nightcap for a brain that’s already flipped to TV test pattern listening to Lyle Lovett & Co. on Pandora. You couldn’t even get a blip if you hooked me up to a brain scan.

Decaf Korakundah is a variety I picked up at Savoy last spring, hoping for a decent plain black decaf. Not so much…it isn’t unpleasant; it just isn’t much of anything. Tastes watered down, even at full strength.

So to finish out the sample, I topped it off with half a teaspoon of Blueberry Black tea Nicole sent from, uh, I think, Tropical Tea Co. Now we’ve got a little something going. Kept steep time light, so I don’t think it’ll buzz me too much to sleep tonight.

Let’s call this one “Beat the Blues-berry.”

The struggle to slog through the day continues. Non-specific, frigid-weather, car-behaving-eccentrically, nothing-to-look-forward-to, just-can’t-muster-up-the-joy, seasonal icks. Watching one friend lose her father to cancer last week; another visiting a surgeon today to scope out options for a breast lump. Housework. Taxes. Gotta smile at how Psalm 3 calls God “the lifter of my head…” Mine’s hanging down by my socks!

So…a cup of buck-up is in order, don’t you think? With little forethought, I tucked a bag of Celestial Seasonings True Blueberry in the cup, then dashed in my steeping basket with a heaping teaspoonful of tulsi, my trusty tension tamer.

Works! The clovey-lemon tulsi taste plays nicely with the gentle blueberry, and I hope to feel its un-kinking effects soon.

It’ll be OK. I know how it ends. Our troubles are light and momentary, Some moments are just kind of long, huh? Chins up, pinkies out, carry on!

OK, I have transgressed and slipped into a cup of cocoa tonight. But in my defense, it’s sloppy, soggy, freezing rain outside, snow to follow, with killer chill behind that. Sitting under a super-fluorescent light at my writing desk didn’t even dent the SAD. It’s chocolate weather.

However, the chance combination part of this little story is courtesy of my hubby. Disappointed by Starbucks’ discontinuation of his favorite Signature cocoa, he started twiddling with cocoa alchemy. Turns out that one packet Swiss Miss Dark Chocolate Sensation and one packet Cold Stone Marshmallow in the same cup approximates the sweet stuff he misses.

Hitting the spot.

H & S Tower of London + bulk cocoa nibs = ooh!

Our little indie import grocery had cocoa nibs available for bulk purchase—couldn’t resist; thought it might feed the winter-blahs chocolate monster without actually ingesting candy and tubs full of fudge frosting.

So, first thing out of the bag, I spooned in a very scant and experimental 1/4 teaspoonful with this morning’s Tower of London. Didn’t hurt, but didn’t have much effect, either.

Seond steep of the TOL, I popped in a full teaspoon of the nibs. Added some very pleasant, gently chocolatish (as opposed to sweetly chocolately) personality to the used leaves.

Good for a picker-upper after taking down the Christmas tree. I didn’t want to do it this year. When the tree goes, January comes :)

I posted elsewhere that I remember why I am a weekend writer … If I don’t write, I have to spend Saturday cooking and cleaning!

So when I hit a wall full-on this afternoon, I took a little of this (Nature’s Tea Leaf Apple) and a little of that (Adagio Caramel) and tried to find a happy medium steep time … and it wasn’t bad. Leaned to the apple side since the caramel ideally takes a couple minutes more. But a good sippin’ steep while I caught my breath.

Pumpkin pie is pumping, gingerbread breaded, mushroom steak in crock pot, potatoes baking, laundry folded, house passably tidy (which is as good as it ever gets)…top that off with a run to Wally World because we ran out of bread, and there’s just not much left (pant, pant). Just another load for a typical domestic diva, but this is like climbing Everest for me ;)

Ku Cha Keemun Monkey + CS Sweet Harvest Pumpkin = Punky Monkey?

My little jar of this Keemun is getting a little old. Its personality has faded, but I think it will be just fine reincarnated into a blender-inner. In this case, I needed something to tone down the wicked sweet stevia in the CS Pumpkin. It did and it goes nicely with homemade gingerbread (yes, friends, I baked from SCRATCH, not a box) for breakfast.

Hedley’s Cherry Rooibos + Bigelow Cozy Chamomile

The cherry syrup vibe is so strong in the Hedley’s I rummaged around in my work stash to find something that might tame it a little. This worked decently. Now chamomile with a little cherry instead of CHERRY that makes your eyes cross :)

You know, there just aren’t enough places in the world you can go to have a good healthy primal scream. A moderate barbaric yawp, even. Work—-well, that’s out; that’s causing it. Home, nope. Somebody’s always taking a nap and would bite your head off. Back yard or on the evening constitutional around the neighborhood—wouldn’t advise it; might attract the attention of neighbors and local constabulary. (This burg is teeny. Doesn’t take much to make a stir.)

So there was nothing else to do for one set of jangled, teeth-gritten-down-to-the-nubs nerves except make a cup of tension-taming tulsi. And, needing gratuitious sugar, I got experimental and tossed in a bag of Celestial Seasonings Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride. (Well, the two smelled nice together when I held the CS bag up to the tulsi jar.)

Steeped, not sensational, but the cup didn’t go down the drain, either. As always, the tulsi took a little of the battery acid out of the back of my neck.

I could still use a good safe shriek. (Maybe we should think about building an outdoor tornado shelter after all…)

1 part Chocolate Cream Truffle (Savoy Tea Co) + 2 parts chamomile = my own chamomile curiosity brew

…which confirmed my hypothesis that chamomile is stout enough to stand up to a stronger flavor. The two paired nicely and I think I could have backed off the chamomile a little to make it more even-steven. Wish I had a really good chocolate decaf to blend it with instead of a black tea, didn’t help the sleep routine a bit, but it was a fun and tasty experiment.

Gobs of lavender + generous chamomile + slightly less tulsi

It was a ham hock and pirhana day yesterday; came dragging home metaphorically rubbing my hindquarters from all the bites taken out of it at work.

This desperation combination was really good; the more lavender, the less clove-y the tulsi. And the scent was wonderful. Everybody crashed early except me, so I had some silence to smell and sip and pray and unwind.

Forget valerian; tulsi has whatever my biochemistry needs to neutralize the jet-fuel adrenalin of a stressy day.

Yesterday’s Paris Morning leaves freshened up with a spoonful of (rather aged) Adagio Caramel. Not exactly stellar, but a good way to stretch my supply of both. Reminds me of this litte tidbit from my Laura Ingalls Wilder reading days:

Use it up
Wear it out
Make it do
Or do without.

Yours Royally,
The Dutchess of Make It Do