Something new is brewing on the Homestead
If you’ve followed us for a while, you probably know that we’re always growing something, making something, or experimenting with something around here. Sometimes those experiments work beautifully. Sometimes...not so much.
But every once in a while, we end up with something we love enough that we want to share it with everyone else.
That’s exactly how our four newest products came to be.
We’ve officially added three loose-leaf herbal teas and one DIY elderberry syrup kit to On Our Own Homestead, and we’re pretty excited about these.
Meet Second Spring, Moringa Sunshine, Hearth & Harvest, and Elderberry Hearth.
One of our favorite things about this collection is that many of the ingredients are grown right here on our homestead. We’re able to take things we’ve planted, cared for, harvested, and dried ourselves and turn them into something that eventually ends up in someone else’s cup. That’s pretty darn cool!
Second Spring
A cozy herbal tea created with the menopausal season of life in mind.
Second Spring is probably one of the most personal blends in this collection.
We wanted to create a tea specifically for this stage of a woman’s life, but there was one very important requirement: it had to actually taste good.
There are plenty of herbs with long histories of traditional use by women, but throwing a bunch of herbs into a bag doesn’t necessarily make a tea you want to drink every day.
So we played with the recipe until we found a combination we really enjoyed.
Second Spring brings together Rooibos, Red Clover Blossoms, Honeybush, Hibiscus, Lemon Balm, Spearmint, Ceylon Cinnamon and other botanicals to create a caffeine-free tea that’s smooth, slightly fruity, gently floral, and cozy.
It was crafted with the menopausal season of life in mind without trying to turn a simple cup of tea into something it isn’t. Sometimes there’s something really nice about making yourself a cup of tea, sitting down for a few minutes, and just enjoying it.
That’s what we wanted Second Spring to be.
Moringa Sunshine
Bright, citrusy, refreshing, and very much inspired by what we grow here. Moringa Sunshine came together because we wanted to do something delicious with our Moringa.
If you’ve ever tasted Moringa by itself, you know it has a pretty earthy, green flavor. We wanted to keep the character of the moringa while making it into a tea that was bright and easy to drink and NOT taste like grass. So we paired it with rooibos, lemongrass, orange, and ginger. And it worked.
The Rooibos gives the tea a smooth base, while the Orange and Lemongrass brighten everything up. Ginger adds just a little warmth at the end.
The result is a caffeine-free tea that tastes great hot but would also make a fantastic iced tea on one of our ridiculously hot Florida afternoons. This one is especially close to home because most of the ingredients are grown right here on our homestead.
It really is a little bit of our garden in your cup.
Hearth & Harvest Herbal Tea
Dark berries, orange, and warm fall spices. Yes, we live in Florida but we still get excited about fall. I do anyways... Chris? Not so much! We just have to drink our fall tea while the air conditioner is running LOL
Hearth & Harvest was our answer to wanting a warm, cozy autumn tea that didn’t taste like every other apple cinnamon tea out there. Instead, we started with smooth Honeybush and Rooibos and added Freeze dried Mulberries and Elderberries for a rich berry flavor.
Then came the good stuff.
Orange peel, dried Orange pieces, Ceylon Cinnamon, Ginger, Cardamom and Cloves. The Berries and Orange keep the tea fruity, while the spices give it that warm Fall flavor we were looking for without completely taking over the cup.
Add a little honey, curl up somewhere comfortable, and pretend it isn’t 87 degrees outside.
Florida fall. We make do.
Elderberry Hearth DIY Elderberry Syrup Kit
Everything you need to make a small batch of elderberry syrup at home, except the water and honey. Elderberry Hearth is a little different from the other three because this one isn’t tea. It’s a DIY elderberry syrup kit.
We wanted to make homemade elderberry syrup easier for people who like the idea of making their own but don’t necessarily want to buy five different bags of ingredients just to make one batch. So we did the measuring for you.
Each kit contains dried Elderberries, Hibiscus flowers, Orange slices, Ginger Root, and Ceylon Cinnamon. You simmer everything with water, strain it, let it cool, and then add your own Honey and that’s it.
The Elderberries give the syrup its deep berry flavor, Hibiscus adds some tartness, Orange brightens it up, and Ginger and Ceylon Cinnamon add a warm spice in the background.
Each kit makes about 20 ounces of finished Elderberry syrup, depending on how much liquid cooks down and how thoroughly you strain it. We purposely don’t include Honey because everyone seems to have a favorite, and this way you can choose exactly what you want to use.
Why We Started Making Herbal Teas
Honestly, this feels like a pretty natural next step for On Our Own Homestead.
We already grow a lot of herbs, fruits, and other plants here and then we harvest them and then we dry them and eventually one of us looks at everything we’ve grown and says, “Okay, what can we make with this?”
That question has led to a lot of projects on our Homestead. These teas are just the latest ones. We love the idea of growing an ingredient ourselves and eventually seeing it become part of a finished product. We can’t grow absolutely everything that goes into these blends, but we grow what we reasonably can here in Florida and bring in the other ingredients needed to make each recipe complete.
Everything is then blended and packaged by us in small batches. There’s something very different about opening a bag of herbs you harvested yourself and knowing that a few weeks/months earlier they were growing right outside your door.
That’s the part of this we really love. And we have a feeling this is only the beginning. As we continue to grow, harvest, and experiment with new ingredients, we hope to keep creating products that reflect what On Our Own Homestead is all about.
Growing what we can, making things with intention and sharing a little piece of our homestead with you. We hope you’ll take a look at our newest creations, find one that sounds just right for you, and enjoy a little taste of the homestead from wherever you call home. :)
Comments