Anyone who knows me at all knows how much I love tea. I drink bucket-loads a day, and always have a teapot somewhere within arms-reach. I drink mostly different varieties of green tea (which I credit with keeping me healthy and happy) but I do sometimes enjoy traditional English-style tea with cream and sugar (which tastes best when made by my British parents with Kenyan tea), or flavoured black tea like chai or pumpkin spice with lots of sugar.
So it is no surprise that I am always on the look-out for things I can boil up or steep. As I have spent a bit of time out on the land here in the Arctic this summer, I have discovered a couple of new things that taste good when boiling water is applied. Today I will show you rose hip tea, and next week I'll show you Labrador tea.
Below are some pictures of the process (which I'm not sure I'm doing correctly, but I figured I'd just throw them into hot water and see what happens!).
Rose hips are the pods that form at the base of the rose flower. Up here I believe they are from the wild rose. I don't have any photos of them on the plant, but I will rectify that this weekend and post a picture later!
They are apparently extremely high in vitamin C, and also contain vitamins A, B, D and E, as well as antioxidants, pectin, and organic acids. The tea is good for preventing bladder infections, and for headaches and dizziness. It also strengthens your immune system against infection and colds (thanks to the high vitamin C content), helps with digestion, flushes out the kidneys and urinary tract and relieves mild rheumatic pain. Impressive!
So how did it taste? Well, the flavor is what I would call "delicate"....meaning, it was hard to taste anything! You need about 5 whole rose hips per cup of water, or you can also cut them into pieces... I'll try that next time. Maybe I need more, or I picked them too early, or I need to dry them or cut them up. But it was very pleasant -- other people have said it tastes like apple, and I would agree (it was nice and tangy).