Confession: my life is nothing like those bright and beautifully photographed blogs out there. (But I’m working on it – the photos at least!) I have been feeling quite tired and drained. Although having some sun today definitely helps.
White Teapot necklace by LoriennaDesigns on Etsy
With my lacklustre state in mind, I took stock of how much I have been feeding my addiction lately. My tea addiction. I have been drinking tea. Lots of it. Well with all this cold and the gloomy weather, what else am I to do? I usually lose count of how many cups I’ve had at work by the end of the day. Then I’ll finally get home and reward myself with another cuppa…
So a couple of weeks ago, I toyed with the idea of not having tea for a week. A whole week! Crazy. Setting myself up for a fail before I even start trying. That’s why it took me two weeks to even give it a go…
I woke up Friday morning worse for wear but could not imagine getting through the day on plain cold water and I’m not partial to fizzy, sugary drinks or fruit teas. Then I remembered a drink I had a while ago when I had some stomach problems. So here’s the promised first recipe with lemons in it. It’s really simple and great if you want a drink that’s both warming and refreshing. You can play around with the quantities depending on how much of a kick you want it to dish out – enjoy!
Lemon elixir with cayenne pepper and ginger
- 1 litre (about a quart) of boiling water
- Juice of 1 lemon
- Pinch of cayenne pepper
- 1/8th teaspoon of ginger powder
Simply combine the above for a nourishing drink. I add the water last so that I don’t have to stir! I do not have a lemon tree in my garden. Instead I used two lemon ice cubes from a stash I made up a little while back using PLj’s Sicilian lemon juice. I did add a slice of lemon to make it look more cheerful though – I’m stingy with my lemons like that. If it’s too sour, add some honey. It’s best not to use sugar if you want it also to soothe your gut because bacteria thrive on sugar. (Nice.)
I like to filter out all the cayenne pepper and ginger after steeping. I received an elegant Teafusion Teapot from La Cafetière last Christmas, which has a filter at the top that works on a similar principle to a standard French press. Just perfect for serving the elixir. Although if you don’t mind gulping down bits of cayenne pepper, simply stir and drink – you will get a hit at the back of the throat for some added invigoration!
This is also nice served cold straight from the fridge in the summer – a spicy lemonade if you will. Let me know if you try it – I know it’s not anything like tea, but it has lemons in it!
this is lemonade 
10 May 2012 at 14:12
I am happy with my green tea addiction… lately it’s the daily chocolate bar I could really do without!
I like this elixir though… maybe with a touch of honey for me
10 May 2012 at 14:21
Oh…chocolate…I love a good dark chocolate!!
10 May 2012 at 15:00
Me too.. especially with ginger or orange. Unfortunately, I’ve recently purchased a new milk chocolate bar… ok.twice. salted caramel.. with little Skor bar like bits in it. Have you lived in HH?
10 May 2012 at 00:17
I’m not addicted to tea. Coffee is my vice and I’m not about to give it up for a week. But I’m going to try that lemon concoction – perhaps interspersing it with coffee!
10 May 2012 at 12:31
After cutting tea out for one day only (such a wimp!) I’ve decided that’s the best approach – everything in moderation 🙂 I love coffee too…but savour it more, say two times a week max!
9 May 2012 at 22:40
Give up tea? Nooooooooo. But I love the word “Elixir”.
9 May 2012 at 23:40
Don’t worry, I only did it for that ONE day…but anything used as a tea substitute has to at least sound a bit fancy 😉
9 May 2012 at 17:51
You might try
5. teaspoon Turmeric powder
6. A Lime
7. sugar (honey)
But don’t touch the Turmeric: it turns your fingers yellow.
And by the way, tea addiction doesn’t seem as bad as coffee addiction. It’s an odd thing though, I can’t taste the fruit teas unless I add a lot of sugar. But I’m confused about which foods have been put on the evil list. For quite a few years everybody said that “sugar was evil”. So the companies substituted “high fructose corn syrup” because fruit sugar is sweet and they didn’t have to list the “Evil sugar” on the label. But then “high fructose corn syrup” became Evil, and so they went back to sugar again. The invention of refined sugar made chocolate from the New World popular, but the Native Americans drank a brew of unsweetened cocoa beans with hot peppers — without sugar, the Dutch process chocolate with sugar never would have taken off and there would be no chocolate as we know it today. Yeah, I don’t really like being bitter but honey is expensive and the bees are dying. I think it says somewhere, “eat fruit and be fruitful, ferment love, and brew the spirit of the day within your grasp with raspberries.”
9 May 2012 at 18:41
Hi Doug, thanks for the suggestions!
I like sugar and there are lots of beautiful varieties of it too. I could never label a food “evil”, but each to his own 😉
Turmeric is a wonderfully anti-inflammatory spice (great used as part of an insect bite treatment!)
Interesting comment on the honey, there’s apparently been a revival in bee keeping and a growth in urban honey making over here. I can’t say I’m contributing to it much though, being one of a kind that prefers to stay away from swarms of bees 😛