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This was super simple as I didn’t even need to boil separate water after cooking the corn. I just took one cup of hot water per cob from cooking the corn and steeped the corn silk in it. While it is still a mild tea, the cobs definitely added some flavor and sweetness that the cornsilk doesn’t have on its own. I made this in a pitcher from 8 cobs of corn. The kids and I drank some of it hot with dinner and chilled the rest to drink iced. It was a refreshing summer beverage!

I made myself a cup of the carrot cake blend I made a few days ago. It was a medley of a whole bunch of different things. It turned out pretty well, with a mild, sweet flavor definitely reminiscent of carrot cake, with a bit of spice and a hint of a creamy frosting. I think I want to increase the ginger and clove in the base blend next time and drop the brown sugar flavor in favor of a few more drops of sweet cream for more of a creamy frosting taste. The kids liked it pretty well so I think this batch will probably go fast.

In other news, our AC has broken down for the second time this year. The tech who fixed it before said this might be a problem in the future, but we were hoping it would hold out until next year. Ah well, that’s life sometimes. Yesterday was miserably hot, so we got a few things done in the morning, then spent the entire afternoon at the library. The weather finally cooled of around dinnertime with a thunderstorm. Today is a little muggy and there’s a steady drizzle this morning, but it is much cooler which I appreciate. Tomorrow will be hot again, but the repairman will also be coming by to fix the AC, so that should help!

I blended turmeric, ginger, and honeybush together and flavored the blend with LorAnn Peach and Orange Cream. As expected, peach dominated over the orange cream which is a very mild flavor but I think it rounded out the peach nicely. The turmeric also stood out quite strongly, I wish the ginger had been just a bit more prominent. I think I will adjust my recipe for next time. The honeybush, like the orange, was very much in the background but I think helped contribute to a well rounded flavor.

I tried my strawberry-blueberry green rooibos blend that I tweaked yesterday again. Success! It’s still a mild flavor, but I can taste the strawberry a little better now, and it’s amazing how much complexity a couple pieces of dried fruit can add to a fruit flavored blend. I think there were literally two blueberries in this spoonful, but the flavor is so much more nuanced and authentic tasting. It’s fascinating because a couple of pieces of dried fruit tends to be disappointingly bland added on it’s own, though I guess I haven’t tried steeping blueberries before. An experiment for another day, perhaps.

I love ginger! It’s a little to strong to drink it straight, but I love it as a dominant flavor in spiced teas, I love it in fruity blends, and I love it in food! But it’s rare for me to find a tea that highlights the ginger flavor without being a little overwhelmingly spicy and harsh. This tea is perfect in that regard. The ginger is front and center, but the honey and fennel balance out the ginger really well, adding depth and sweetness. I didn’t notice that it had rooibos in it until I looked at the ingredients today, but I don’t taste that in the blend at all. I am happy to drink this straight, and it is also great with heavy cream. It’s a nice one to tuck into my purse as a going out tea. It’s also great that all the ingredients are safe for pregnancy and helpful for heartburn, which feels a little counterintuitive because spicy flavors usually make heartburn much worse. My one complaint is that unless you can find it in a store, it is only available on from their website if you buy 6 boxes at once, which is a lot of one flavor of tea. I think individual boxes are available on Amazon and such, but at a much higher price than in stores. I would buy more Bigelow tea if their website made single boxes more available.

Fennel is a good pregnancy safe herb for heartburn. I have been drinking it a lot lately blended with green rooibos and marshmallow root. It has a light pleasant flavor reminiscent of anice with the addition of a pleasant green herbaceousness.

I was looking at the company’s notes when setting up the page for this review and apparently toasting it brings out more of a black licorice flavor, which sounds delicious as I have always loved black licorice. I will have to give that a try at some point!

For me, the third trimester of pregnancy always comes with heartburn. I’ve been doing pretty well this time keeping it at bay with dietary changes, but that means a lot of my favorite fruity blends are off limits due to acidity. So, on Friday I flavored some green rooibos with strawberry and blueberry flavor concentrate. It turned out quite mild, with the berry flavors showing up pretty lightly in a way that reminds me of some flavored white teas I have had in the past but it is quite pleasant and has some of the fruitiness I have been missing. I just remembered that I have some dried blueberries, so I tossed a few of those in the blend for next time. The blueberry is already coming through more strongly than the strawberry, so I might add a couple more drops of strawberry flavor concentrate as well.

In other news we finally put pictures on the wall just shy of a year into living in our new house.

Also, the box Decaf and Herbal TTB is filling up nicely. It will be ready to send out at the end of the week. The TTB is open to internation participants. Signups are here if you are interested in participating: https://steepster.com/discuss/46105-signups-open-summer-2025-decaf-and-herbal-traveling-tea-box

I tend not to reach for Echinacea unless I am feeling under the weather, but it does seem to give me a boost when I need it. I find the flavor to be fairly pleasant. Mild and softly vegetal with notes of flowers and hints of honey and hay. It reminds me of standing in a field on a clear afternoon in late summer when the air is starting to cool to a more pleasant temperature and a gentle breeze is picking up and stirring u the scent of the long grasses and wildflowers, but the ground underfoot is still radiating a comforting warmth from the heat of the day.

Anyway, this was a nice pick me up today.

I really enjoy chamomile tea, and I actually tend to prefer it bagged over loose because the flavor always seems to be different. My theory is that loose chamomile tends to keep part of the leaves and stem to keep the flower intact which adds a more vegetal and bitter element to the flavor. The bags usually seem to use only the petals. This particular brand isn’t bitter, but has a bit of that green vegetal flavor. It’s only a little, but there are other brands I prefer so I probably won’t buy it again in the future.