Experimenting with hot drinks and local plants

I won't call this tea as it is not technically tea but it does involve hot water, plant leaves and refreshing, thirst quenching enjoyment. Here's what we've been up to.

A few days back we were given some fresh cinnamon leaves right off the bush and were told to boil them and drink the result like tea. Just smelling the leaves was nearly intoxicating (assuming you like cinnamon) and the result after boiling was very tasty, and not at all overpowering. Just as advertised. However, rather than stick with the basic formula we decided to experiment with a few different blends. So far we've tried the cinnamon drink with:

•  honey
•  couple drops of rum (extra strong so you don't need much)
•  sugar

So far the blend of cinnamon, honey and rum is the tops but that can be a problem when frequently operating motor vehicles (e.g. boats - for an example read the crazy dinghy driver post from a few days ago) so we usually just stick to cinnamon and honey. We're just about out of the cinnamon now and are now hoping for another generous donation.

Then a couple days ago we were given a sprig of lime leaves along with our usual bag of freshly picked limes. The leaves came with the same instructions, boil and drink like tea. Again, the basic formula was great but we also enjoyed the following blends. Lime leaves or juice with:

• sugar
• honey
• vanilla
• rum

Austin really likes the blend with vanilla and Carla prefers just the lime juice in either hot or really cold water (and when I say prefer I mean is addicted to ... watch out if she doesn't get her fix morning, noon and night). We really need to keep up a constant supply of limes and/or lime leaves.

Feel free to suggest more blends and we'll let you know how they work.