Buy bulk cinnamon bark. Break off an inch and drop in hot liquid: coffee, tea, water, cocoa, etc. If you don’t use real milk, you can go on using it for hours and hours. It immediately sinks to the bottom and lies there exuding cinnamon-y goodness and it just gets quicker to flavor up. So you don’t need those pricey little specialty coffees. Just go straight to the source. You could probably do the same with a few cloves. Nutmegs are too large. But the basic principle of tea is something that will exude flavor into heated water, so in that sense coffee is a tea, and so is lemon or a single cinnamon stick in hot water.
simple treat for cold weather
by CJ | Dec 6, 2010 | Journal | 16 comments
16 Comments
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My grandmother used to put a couple whole peppercorns in her tea….she said it helped with congestion lol…she also used willow bark for headaches…of course she was old school Indian lol.
Willow bark is actually something the Kiowa and the old Celts had in common. Salix—Latin for willow—salicylic acid> or aspirin… You take the red stringy stuff from under willow bark, and it has 2 ready uses: that fiber will always be dry when the rest of the wood is wet, and it makes great tinder to get a fire started in a rainy stretch—and make tea with it on your now crackling fire, and it cures your headache!
Peppercorns, eh? I may give your gran’s remedy a try!
I use mulling spice in apple cider. Drop a tablespoon of the following mix into a pot with 1 can apple juice and 2-3 cans water (I like it a little thin). Then heat to boiling. This is great on cold snowy days.
6 whole cardamon
1 tbsp. whole cloves
1 tbsp. whole allspice
1 tbsp. orange peel, diced & dried
12 whole cinnamon sticks
Similar, but even better as long as one isn’t planning to drive, etc., is wassail with cranberry juice and a little rum (Captain but no lime, sorry) added to the apple cider. I like mine piping hot and would rather not boil off the rum, so I add a shot to the mugs rather than the putting any in the stockpot; which also allows each to choose one’s own octane level. Super yummy! Recipes can be found on the net or I can pass along my mother’s at request.
Arrrh! Rum! Jane’ll try that one!
I use loose tea, but when I am traveling I make my own teabags. I also make a reasonable facsimile of chai with 5 spice powder and extra cinnamon with about a spoonful of loose tea. You could just use the spices if you want to flavor other things. I get my teabags from the tea company I use, Upton Tea in Massachusetts. Yummy stuff: it makes the house smell great. 😉
You could use ginger root for tee, too. Put a few (peeled) slices of fresh ginger root into a mug, pour in boiling water and wait at least five minutes. Even knowing it, the sensation of that tea always surprises me. The warmth it provides is great after the coldness outside. As stargazers know – drink it afterwards or you might freeze even more outside.
And I have some ginger root in the fridge: great on chicken!
I got addicted to those pricey fancy coffees, but have found that, if I throw in a few cloves when I am milling the beans, then a dash of nutmeg and cinnamon on top of the grounds before brewing, I get a very nice spiced coffee. The flavored coffees tend to go off in our house before they get used up, because I don’t drink them for long before I want regular coffee, but the spice blend I can make on the fly for single pots.
Ginger is great for nausea, too, if you can’t take or don’t like peppermint or chamomile.
We sometimes put a few pieces of cinnamon bark into the coffee basket on the coffee maker. It adds a fairly strong cinnamon taste to brewed coffee. We do love flavored coffee, though! There’s a shop in town that sells quite a few different flavored blends. Our favorites are Seville Orange and Black Cherry.
Second on the ginger as a good nausea remedy. How many people remember drinking flat ginger ale for the stomach flu when you were younger? It rehydrated you, and the ginger soother the upset. I always carry candied ginger when I go on board a boat.
I recall when I had a really bad bout of it when I was a kid recovering from surgery—nowadays they’d have had me on IV so fast, since it’d been going on for over 12 hours post op, and I couldn’t shake it: they gave me a teaspoon of water or ice and up it would come, hour after hour after hour—so when the nurse with brains (there were two, one with, one without)came on duty, she brought me a cup of ginger ale. I never had anything taste so good and it stopped the vicious cycle. But I didn’t like it that much afterward: I was rather puzzled by that. It’s not until I became an adult that I became fond of the taste of ginger again, and not until the last 10 years that I learned to cook with it.
I have been using a lot more ginger in drinks since I started freezing it. I put some into a freezer bag and leave it there for months. Not only does the ginger stay good much longer, but it’s easier to use.
Take a spoon to peel whatever amount you need to use, this takes the skin off and wastes almost none of the good stuff like a peeler or knife would, then grate the frozen ginger directly. The juice is frozen flakes that dissolve right into whatever you put it in and the fibers get sheared very short. I put it directly into hot water and add lemon and honey and don’t have to strain it before drinking.
Good tip! I waste too much ginger by NOT freezing it.
@ Rift, freezing is a great idea. I have always preserved it in dry sherry in the fridge….great for cooking, but it does get soggy.
My mother used to make us popsicles with flat ginger ale when we were sick. A real treat! 🙂
We sometimes cut out the middle man and make tea straight from the cinnamon. Badia sells cinnamon in little segments about 3″ in a container – when we use that we use 10 segments and bring it to a boil in a standard saucepan full of water, then simmer on low 30 minutes. We have to wing it using other cinnamon.
It’s great hot, or you can chill it down (and dilute to taste) for a refreshing cold drink as well.