Tea of the Month: April

You can tell a lot about a person from what’s in their teacup. Here’s a peek into ours!

Lately, Amber’s favorite has been a blend of her two standby favorites: Peppermint and Linden. She goes through phases about which one is her favorite, but lately she just decided to mix them together. I thought for sure that the Peppermint would completely overwhelm the much subtler flavor of the Linden, but I was really surprised! The result is smooth and delicious, and makes a great tea for bedtime, or anytime!

I’ve been drinking a lot of Ginger-Chamomile. I had a bunch of big projects looming over my head that just finally needed to get done once and for all, and I was pretty stressed about them. That stress got me in the guts, and Ginger-Chamomile is just exactly what my guts need in that situation. The Chamomile is relaxing, helping the knots unwind – both metaphorically and literally – Chamomile relaxes not only the nervous system, but steep it longer and it’s a smooth muscle relaxant too! Ginger is warming, and gently helps get things moving when they’re all bound up with stress.

I also find that those two blend quite nicely with Wood Betony – my standby for when my head gets overwhelmed, and Linden. All together, the flavor is scrumptious and the effects are deliciously relaxing.

I’ve also been having a couple of cups daily of my adaptogen chai, which you’ll find here in one variation, but which seems to morph according to the mood and need. The last couple months, we’ve taken to calling it “Un-Coffee” because as Amber says, the goals are exactly opposite of coffee, so, it’s un-coffee! The blend has been roughly equal parts Codonopsis, Chaga, Ashwagandha, Spikenard, Dandelion root, Burdock root, and fair trade swiss-water-decaffeinated coffee. The result, not surprisingly, tastes strongly of coffee, which is appealing, but has very little caffeine (decaf coffee is only actually 97-99% caffeine free) and a whole lot of adrenal support. Not only that, but with the Burdock and Dandelion roots, this particular blend is great for the liver and a prebiotic as well.

Ryn’s been adding Plantain and Violet to just about everything these days. Plantain is a plant we use a lot, and it features prominently in our formulas for people with compromised gut health. It’s a powerful vulnerary and indispensible for anytime you’re trying to heal damaged epi- or endothelium cells. But while he was down in Texas studying with Sam Coffman, he learned that it’s strongly liver supportive, as well. Not only that, but new research shows that Plantain is also very effective at breaking up biofilms, which are all the rage in health research these days. His excitement has got him looking at Plantain with fresh appreciation.

Violet is a plant that I use a lot, for lymphatic stimulation as well as for stress formulas when someone is heart-weary, but Ryn has lately really jumped on the Violet bandwagon. He was reading a lovely monograph by Jim McDonald posted on Rosalee de la Foret’s website, and it was one of those in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time things that hit him over the head: Violet for dry constitutions! It’s not necessarily new information, but it just goes to show, sometimes you can even teach a thing over and over before you realize, oh hey, why don’t I do that every day?

Amber’s pup Elsie recently ate something that didn’t agree with her – either she found something we didn’t catch and scarfed it, or maybe she had some bit of pathogenic invader. The result was a couple of days of diarrhea, no fun for a poor pup. We gave her a bunch of powdered Turmeric in her food, along with some GT’s Cranberry Kombucha, and watched closely. By the end of the third day, everything came out normal. We like to give her Nettle powder as well in her food, and whole Chamomile flowers when she’s a little rambunctious.

The cats, Tangle and Minnie, are trickier. Their finicky palates generally won’t let us get away with adding powdered herbs to their food, but we found another way: bone broth, chock full of roots and seaweed, as gravy over their grain free wet catfood. They’re happy, we’re happy, and everyone gets their herbs.

Around the house, what we drink cycles with the seasons, with how busy we are, with how we’re feeling, so stay tuned next month for another installment of Tea of the Month!

this blog post was written while sipping warm ginger-chamomile with linden and wood betony, and munching a bit of Apotheker’s honey-sweetened chocolate