Making your own teas at home is terrific for the mind, body and wallet! It’s nutritional alternative way to replace sugary sodas and adrenaline-stressing coffee. Ayurvedic practitioners have recommended drinking warm teas throughout the day for millennia.  The warmth soothes the entire digestive tract. Recently black and green teas have been touted in scientific studies as a great source of antioxidants. The volatile oils in naturally caffeine-free herbal tea have powerful nutritional benefits. For instance, ginger and fennel aid digestion. Raspberry leaf stabilizes female hormones. Mint relaxes intestinal tension. For the threat of a cold, rose hips provide high potency vitamin C, and slippery elm immediately coats a scratchy throat.

I make a full pot at least twice a day. For pennies most mornings, I make one of four varieties of loose Earl Grey tea that I purchase from a local teach shop in Los Angeles, Chado Tea Room. Loose tea is much less expensive than teabags and any Englishman will tell you, it’s the superior way to make tea. Without the constriction of a teabag or tea ball, the free-floating tealeaves flourish into a brew more fully and readily. Whether hot with half and half or chilled later in the day with lemon, I add a little bit of agave syrup to sweeten black and green teas without spiking my blood sugar levels.

Later in the day and right until bedtime, I drink all kinds of caffeine-free tea concoctions as a way to hydrate and nourish myself. Some of my favorite combinations for a full pot of tea are below.

Civilized Morning:

2 t. Earl Grey with lavender

Served with half and half and agave syrup

After Dinner:

1 inch sliced fresh ginger

½ lemon

1-2 T. agave syrup

Tummy Tamer:

2 T. fennel seeds

1 T. agave syrup

Romantic Afternoon:

1 t. lavender

3 T. rose water

2 T. kava kava

Cold Coming On:

1 T. slippery elm

1 T. rose hips