Tea

While you still have mint growing in your gardens, meadows, or at the edge of the driveway, alongside the ugly metal barn,

I want to give you this recipe for summer tea/juice. It’s light and refreshing, lightly sweetened with honey and orange juice. My children love it.

Orange-Mint Tea
Adapted from Simply In Season

I don’t measure the ingredients for this tea, so what I’ve written below is just to give you a rough idea. Change it around to suit your tastes.

10-15 stalks of mint, just the top 6-8 inches
1/3 cup orange juice concentrate, or one cup of reconstituted orange juice
the juice from two lemons
1/2-3/4 cup honey

Pick over the stalks of mint, removing any bad leaves, and if you want to, gently rinse the stalks with water. Put two to three quarts of water in a large kettle and bring to a boil. Stir the mint leaves into the water, put the lid back on the kettle, and remove the kettle from the heat. Allow the tea to steep for 30 minutes.

Scoop the mint out of the water and pour the tea through a fine-mesh strainer to remove all leafy particles. Stir the honey and lemon and orange juices into the tea and add more cold water, or ice, to make a gallon of tea.