Serenity

I’ve been spending the evening winding down, & organizing my (always expanding) tea collection. Anything of any quantity is going into a recycled tin (I have SO many!), & I’m making fun labels for them.

I also started a Tea Journal, to keep track of my purchases & trades. It’s been a nice quiet evening, & I’ve been sipping this soothing minty tea while I played with colored pencils & teas, journaled, talked to one of my daughters, & even blew some soap bubbles!

This tea starts with a lemony essence, that gradually gives way to lavender, then spearmint. The Valerian is there, but not cloying, like it can be. I love Valerian, because it has such tranquilizing qualities (what do you think they named valium after?). This tea kind of reminds me of one of my favorites from my Hippy Days. “Nuclear Casual Tea”, made back in the 70’s by Traditional Medicinals, was a blend of Spearmint, rose petals, chamomile, Hops, Rosemary, & Catnip. So the blend is not the same, & neither is the flavor (except the mintyness), but they have the same goal, which is to help us relax & unwind, & that’s exactly what I’ve been doing! Hasta Manana!

Ok, I can smell the valerian in this one. It’s gonna put me in a coma for sure. I’ve heard Valerian described as smelling like old socks and various other horrible things but have never really found it objectionable. It has good associations for me, probably because I’m the kind of angst-y person who can always appreciate a bit of calming influence.

Some years ago, I devised a calming herbal blend of the same name—Two, actually. One I named sereni-tea to sooth my nerves. The second I named Mister T—to knock me out. The second one had valerian as I was dealing with insomnia. It was pretty effective. So now I’m a little concerned that this blend, which smells like valerian, will put me in a coma and disrupt my work today. Oh well, we’ll see.

It tastes…ok. Not particularly objectionable. Sort of a pleasant, generic herbal blend. Some mild mint in there somewhere and other good weedy stuff, enough that I can taste more than valerian. Yeah it’s there, but there’s enough other stuff to “sweeten” the blend and give it a sort of overall pleasant taste reminiscent of the old fashioned hippy tea blends of the seventies. Back when it was all about bucking the evil caffeine establishment and using healthy herbs. I get a little nostalgic with medicinal brews because they are more like the ones back then—A bit less about extracts and flavorings and more about getting certain health effects.

This one seems to be working. I’m starting to rub my eyes and yawn a bit. I probably ought to save it for individual cups in the evening rather than cold brewing it in the middle of the day. I’m becoming a bit mellower than I ought to for this time of day.

I’ll have to remember this stuff for times of stress though. It’s relaxing me very nicely, which helps my aches and pains too.