With the recent construction of my online tea store, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on my lifelong love affair with tea.
Being English, I feel like I was born with a teacup in my hand.
But I asked my mum, and she said I actually would have started drinking tea when I was five; we’d all sit up in bed on a Sunday morning and have a cup of tea before starting the day.
Mum also told me that when we were little, my sister and I took her and dad a cup of tea one day. We knew we weren’t allowed to use the kettle so we used the water from our hot water bottles! Needless to say they didn’t drink it. I don’t remember doing that, but I do remember the first cup of drinkable tea I ever made. It was for my Grandad and I did it to earn a badge at brownies.
An evolution of tea.
Tea has obviously made a big impact on my life! In the early days my cup of tea was weak with sugar. As I grew older and my tastes changed, I started adding less and less sugar until my favourite brew was a nice rosy colour with just a dash of milk.
Sadly (or in hindsight, gladly!) when I started Naturopathic college I discovered that traditional black tea was the cause of my long struggle with constipation. I had always dabbled in herbal teas but it was after this discovery that I stopped drinking black tea and switched mostly to Dandelion root. The change to my digestive function and overall health was remarkable!
When I was little, lolly shops were my favourite place to spend my pocket money. As an adult, lolly shops were replaced with tea shops (and stationery shops). When my friends come over for dinner, I stand at my tea cupboard and reel off a long list of tea options for them to choose from. The problem is, I don’t really like a lot of the tea blends that are on the market. Or, I get really annoyed when I try a delicious blend at the tea shop but when I read the ingredients, the blend contains sugar or flavouring.
Surely you don’t need to add flavouring to herbal tea?!
One day about a year ago, I had an epiphany!
As a Naturopath, I’m a trained herbalist, my knowledge of medicinal herbs is huge, I love the idea of herbal tea but I don’t like what is currently available… Why don’t I make my own organic herbal teas?
I think this is what is commonly known as a light bulb moment.
I have discovered that blending herbal teas is not as easy as it sounds. You can choose all of these beautiful herbs for their amazing actions but getting the right balance of flavour is not so easy. But, it can be done! Over the past few months I have tasted hundreds of cups of herbal tea and I will not release a blend until I am 100% happy with the flavour. So far I am absolutely addicted to every blend and I am determined to keep up this standard of tea perfection.
The future is looking beau-tea-ful.
My partner and I have become obsessed with thinking up new tea names. Any word that remotely sounds like “tea” will become a potential blend. Jonathan inspired the blend i’m working on at the moment when he looked at me the other day and said “after par-tea” BRILLIANCE!!!
I’m having so much fun with this new part of my business. The online store has been much busier than I ever anticipated and I am full of ideas for the future of Burton Health Tea! You can have a little poke around my store here and make sure you check back often as there will always be new blends being added to the family.
Laura