| Even though there are literally thousands of different types and styles of tea (it’s said there are over 3,000 different styles of China green tea alone), from the six main types; black, green, oolong, white, yellow, and puerh, to blended, scented, and flavored teas, there are endless combinations. But sometimes you may just crave a certain flavor of tea that you either can’t find, or doesn’t exist. Or you may just want to try your hand at creating your own unique sig- nature flavor, whatever that may be. |
| It can be fun and easy creating your own flavored teas. The first thing you need is a base tea to which you’ll add your flavorings. Just choose your favorite tea–you can use any of the six main tea types or even use a favorite blended or scented tea as a base. Or you can even use a flavored tea and enhance the core flavor, for example, take strawberry or peach flavored tea and add fresh strawberries or peaches to amp up the flavor. (For two great recipes visit our Kiwi Apple Strawberry iced tea and Strawberry Lemonade iced tea recipes).When making fla- vored tea you can use virtually any type of fresh or dried fruit; apple, |
| peach, plum, apricot, or pear. Or if you love berries, strawberry, blue- berry, raspberry, blackberry, or citrus fruits, orange, lemon, or lime are always refreshing. You can use dried peel, or make a puree from fresh or frozen fruit, or just add the juice. Whichever way you like best is fine.I like fresh squeezed juice with my tea, and add pieces of fresh fruit as a colorful, tasty garnish, as well as make ice cubes with the fruit puree to add later to iced tea, where pieces of dried fruit or peel works better with hot tea.
Herbs and spices are always an easy way to add just the right chai tea has become popular in the West, and harvest spiced tea mixes. You can also try adding rose hips, hibiscus, and strawberry, blended together into a puree oolong teas. Pink rose petals, blue corn- health benefits. Licorice root, for example, is not just Rooibos, an herb from South Africa can be used as a base tea
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| Begin creating your favorite flavored teas by gathering together your ingredients; base tea, flavorings, and if you want to make tea bags, some fillable tea bags (see links below for tea and fillable tea bags in various sizes).Once you have your base tea, the ingredients you’re using to make your special flavored tea, the rest is pretty much experimentation. It’s best to start small, maybe make enough for two or three cups of tea (so that if you hate it you haven’t wasted a lot of ingredients). If it’s not quite right the first time around, just keep adding or deleting a little bit at a time until it’s just right. It’s a good idea to have a little notebook handy to keep track of the ingredients and amounts of Once you have your favorite flavorings and recipes worked out you may want to try using different Enjoy. |