I love you, honey (and lemon)

Hubby showed me an article about Korean honey tea a while back. It is simple to make but can be found at most Asian markets.   

Korean honey tea is not really a "tea" at all.  It only becomes "tea" when boiling water is poured over the prepared ingredients.

I made up the recipe a month or so ago, stuck it in my fridge and pretty much forgot about it.  It wasn't until I got the flu that I remember that the concoction was "brewing" in the back of the refrigerator.  What is more soothing to a sort throat and cough than honey and lemon?

It was the perfect hot beverage and exactly what I needed when I was feeling crappy.  Although, I think it would be fine and refreshing any time.

In a jar combine sliced lemons and real honey.  Place in the refrigerator until ready to use.  The honey acts as a natural preservative so it doesn't spoil.  You can continue to add lemon and honey to the jar whenever you have half a lemon you don't know what to do with or a bit of left over honey.

The lemon and honey combine to make a sweet, citrusy concoction not unlike marmalade.

When you want to make a cuppa add a lemon slice and a dribble of honey into a mug and pour boiling water over it.  Experiment with the honey/lemon and water ratio to get the taste you want.  I've found that one slice of lemon and a tablespoon of honey makes a nice mellow mix.  I also experimented with adding a tea bag when I pour in the boiling water.  And that was really nice!

I will keep a jar in the fridge year round.  I imagine it would also be a delicious addition to iced tea in the summer time.

Yum!

Some food for thought about honey.  You will note that I indicate to use real honey in the mixture.  That's because the vast majority of honey you can buy at the grocery store isn't really honey at all or barely honey, at the very least.  

Most of the junk labeled "honey" on store shelves is nothing more than honey flavored corn syrup.  Either that or it is so filtered and processed that all the good stuff found in honest to goodness natural honey is removed.

Why?  Because most of the "honey" that floods the U.S. market is imported from China.  Chinese honey  is cheap honey.  They dilute it with high-fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners then go on to add other chemicals and antibiotics.  Chinese honey is also known to contain a scarily high content of heavy metals.  NOT GOOD.

It's best to get honey from a local bee farm that way you know it's the real thing.  However, that's not always reasonable.  If you can't find a local supplier, you can feel fairly confident that organic store-bought honey is the real stuff.

You can't have your pudding if you don't eat your meat

I am reading JK Rowlings’ new book “Casual Vacancy”.  It’s really quite good but a giant leap away from Harry Potter . . . this is not a children’s book.  It is also not Americanized in any way and is chock full of Britishisms.

I have an acquaintance (I’ll call her ‘M’) from merry ol’ England - one who just so happens to live in the epicenter of all things British . . . London.  So, I decided to ask her about a couple of words that mean different things to me than what they seem to mean in the book.  

‘Pudding’. . . to me that means nothing more than a creamy, smooth confection preferably of the chocolate variety.  To Brits pudding is a lot more than just mere pudding . . . it’s everything dessert.

So, I tried to explain to my friend . . . pudding is a dessert but not all desserts are pudding . . . at least here in good ol' America.

She seemed a bit confused, “pudding/dessert = same?”

Me, “No.” 

I went on to explain, “Cake not pudding, ice cream is not pudding . . . they are dessert but not pudding.”

More confusion. 

M, “So pudding = pie based?”

Me, “No pudding is PUDDING based . . . every other dessert is just dessert.
M, “Confuuuuuuuuused!! As far as I know both (pudding/dessert) are the same here!”

There, yes.  Here, no.

I tried a graphical approach.

M, “??”

So, I tried the descriptive, “Pudding is a dessert with a creamy consistency; like mousse.”

And then to further complicate the situation I brought up that Brits put meat in pudding (Yorkshire Pudding) and that some sausages are puddings, too (Blood Pudding). And what about Steak and kidney pudding!  

M, “Heh heh - I am soooooo confused!!!!”



Me, “That's ok . . . we all agree on what tea is, right?”

Wrong.

To me tea is a simply a cup of tea.  Of course, I know of the British traditional tea time where tea is served with sweet and/or savory treats (puddings?).

Me, “If you're going to tea . . . is it merely tea (like a cup-a) or can it be more than tea.  Like a meal of some sort; dinner or lunch.”

M, “To be honest there isn't a hard and fast rule. Some people over here refer to tea as in having their evening meal/light supper.

“It isn't lunch though, lunch is lunch! 

“But if it is just say a cake and a drink then the phrase would be more likely ‘come over for a cup of tea’.”

Uh, huh.  Crazy Brits.

Pssst  . . . I bet tea would go great with pudding.

Tea two and two for tea

When I was a girl, summers up in the mountains of Pennsylvania meant exploring the streams to keep cool or sitting in the shade of a big ol' tree reading.  Like anywhere else, the heat of summer could be oppressive and stifling but was usually a breeze; although, not necessarily a cooling one. 


On sunny days, my mom would often have a jug of tea brewing in the sun.  Garnished with sprigs of fresh mint from the garden, sun tea was something I drank in abundance.  It's something I enjoyed then and still do.


It's lighter tasting and less bitter than regular brewed tea because there is less tannin released from the tea leaves.  Quite refreshing.


More recently a childhood joy of mine has turned into something sinister . . . although I never once got sick from sun tea there's all kinds of blah-blah-blah warning that sun tea can be a veritable petri dish bacteria.






I'm not one of those people has a bottle of hand sanitizer in every room or sterilizes every surface I touch.  If you don't expose yourself to germs there's no way your body can build an immunity to them.  I'm not saying wallow in filth and you'll be healthier for it . . . don't be ridiculous . . . but living in a purified environment only makes you more sensitive to cooties that your supposedly protecting yourself from.


Anyhoo . . . there are bacteria commonly found in water which can be destroyed if the water is heated to a temperature of 195° for three to five minutes.


Tea steeping in a jar on your porch won't get any hotter than 130° Fahrenheit, which isn't hot enough to kill germs.


Frankly, I'd be surprised if its even possible for anything to be alive in our drinking water . . . it's so chlorinated and chemically processed.



Again . . . I've never gotten sick from sun tea.  However, that may be because there are certain steps you can take to keep the germies at bay.  One . . . use a clean container.  Soap and hot water should be sufficient but you can also rinse the container in a bleach solution made with 1-1/2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon of bleach per gallon of water for added security.


We've always used plain old fashioned mason jars to brew tea.  But they have special fancy dancy copntainers specifically for brewing sun tea . . . basically a big mason style jar with a spigot.  The problem with the spigot is that it's hard to get them thoroughly clean with all the little nooks and crannies and whatnot.


Just keep in mind that sun tea doesn't keep as well as regular brewed tea so make sure to refriderate what you don't drink right away and don't keep it around for more than a day or so.  And, if it gets syrupy or has weird floaty ropey thingies in it then don't drink it . . . that's bacteria and you've just brewed yourself a healthy culture.


Anyhoo . . . sun tea is really easy to make, delicious, requires minimal effort and requires no energy other than that which comes from the sun.




Sun Tea Recipe


Put 4 to 6 tea bags into a clean 2 quart glass container. Fill with water and cap. 


Place outside where the sunlight can strike the container for about 3 to 5 hours. Move the container if necessary to keep it in the sun. When the tea has reached its desired strength, remove from sun and put it in the refrigerator. You can leave the tea bags in the jar if you want.


The tea will probably taste more mellow than what you are used to from using boiling water. The slow seeping has a way of bringing out a slightly different flavor from the tea. 


Serve over ice with a few sprigs of fresh mint and/or a squirt of fresh lemon.


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