I’ve recently gotten into making my own tea, or maybe I should call them hot beverages as I’m not strictly speaking sure what makes it qualify as tea.

Fresh mint tea has long been a classic both in local cafés here in the Netherlands as well as in my house, as we conveniently have mint growing in our garden. Though not so much in December..

I’ve been hit with my second cold in about a month, and have been drinking even more tea than usual, as well as variations of hot whisky. Inspired by this I started making basically a hot whisky without whisky – because as much as I’d like to I just can’t go around drinking whisky all day (though strictly speaking I guess I could as I do have holidays…).

I started out with a basic mix of fresh lemon/lemon juice, sometimes some tangerine, sliced fresh ginger and some honey. Toss some hot water over that, let it sit for a while, stir it a bit, and you have some really easy, tasty and healthful tea. I’ve also started experimenting with adding various herbs or dried spices that I had lying around into the mix, like a cinnamon stick, dried cloves, fresh thyme and sage. Really you are only limited by your imagination.

Since I’ve been spending a lot of time at home over the past week I like to brew up a pot (or two..) of fresh tea and put it on my teapot warmer to drink while reading, writing or watching Netflix. Relaxing and tasty! And it looks pretty too.

If you have any good recipe ideas, please feel free to share.