Christmas Spice Tea




This is a recipe for a really easy but impressive gift. It would be great with a box of homemade cookies. You'll need to peel the lemon about a week ahead and let the peel dry out before you chop it up. Make sure you use loose leaf tea. I tried it last time by emptying the contents of some Darjeeling tea bags and it just didn't work the same, the leaves are so much smaller in teabags. The recipe is from a little book called Gifts Homemade by Anne Chapman which I bought for a pound about 15 years ago from a discount book shop and which I've used so much. It looks like it's out of print, it's not on Amazon but there seem to be a few inexpensive copies knocking around on Ebay and used book sites. I highly recommend it. The strawberry gin recipe is from here and I'll be making my annual batch of orange chilli marmalade from it soon.

Christmas Spice Tea

The ideal tea to refresh your spirits on a cold winter afternoon and it smells amazing. Can be drunk with or without milk.

75g (2.5oz) of loose Darjeeling tea leaves
3 star anise crushed
2 sticks of cinnamon, crushed
Peel of half a lemon that's been dried and chopped
3 cloves crushed
6 peppercorns crushed

Mix all the ingredients together and place in an airtight tin or box. Add a label.



My mum has given me 3 festive tea cosies that she has just made to add to the Folksy shop which would be ideal for serving this tea from. I've put them in there now so they'll be included in the competition.

Comments

  1. Siobhan10 November 2010 at 22:56

    That's a great recipe and a great xmas gift. I'm going to try this with Rooibos tea and see how it turns out. Thanks for posting! x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tea and Sympatico10 November 2010 at 23:11

    Good idea with the Rooibos. Think I'll try it with that too!

    ReplyDelete

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