We all have them – morning routines.  Yours will differ from mine.  Mine differs depending on the season and the day of the week.  It is fall – almost even on the calendar – and that routine includes a pot of tea.

Now, a lot of people drink tea on a regular basis but I love to have a pot of warm tea to help keep me moving in the fall, winter and spring months.  There are ways to make tea – loose leaves, tea bags, pots, cups, mugs.  So with special thanks to Kristen Roby – food blogger on Pressconnects.com, here is what I do.

The first thing I look at every morning is what type of tea I want to have.  Type, you may ask.  And I answer emphatically, yes, the type of tea.  I prefer herbal teas without caffeine in them.  I have a range of these I like from simple one herb ingredient to mutliple ingredients.  My top two are peppermint and lemon zinger.  The peppermint is just that – peppermint.  The lemon zinger has a blend of herbs – hibiscus flowers, rosehips, roasted chicory root (though not much as I can’t taste it), orange peel, lemon grass, lemon peel, dried lemons.

I tend to buy Celestial Seasonings teas as they are not super expensive.  They taste good.  They store well.  I love some of their seasonal items at Christmas time – Nutcracker Sweet (a vanilla nut tea), Gingerbread Spice tea (cinnamon, ginger root, roasted chicory root, roasted barley malt), and Sugar Plum Spice tea (hibiscus, roasted barley malt, roasted chicory, rosehips, chamomile, natural plum flavor with other natural flavors, ginger, roasted carob and cardamom).

My mother has often sent me teas as gifts.  She prefers Republic of Tea teas.  I like the round tins as I can reuse them for many things.  I believe they have herbal teas but what I have on hand currently are all flavored black teas and some green teas.  I do love some of these that I have tried – both seasonal offerings and those that are everyday offerings.

Anyway, tea… I always run warm water to put in my tea pot prior to starting the water for making the actual tea.  I do this for many reasons – one of which is my mother told me to do it.  I, then, dump whatever water is in my tea kettle out and start with fresh water in it for heating to make the tea.  I do not have a tea cozy when all is said and done but I do wrap my tea pot in a towel to keep it warm.

Once the tea kettle is warm – never boiling – I empty the tea pot (have all my tea vessels confused you yet?).  Depending on the size of the tea bag,  I put tea bags in my tea pot and then pour warm water over it.  All of my tea needs to steep – like coffee brewing for those of you out there that prefer coffee – but with the herbal tea, I will leave the tea bags in the pot.  If the tea is a black tea basis, I will remove the tea bags after about ten minutes. 

Then, I pour myself a nice, warm mug or cup of tea and relax.