Make your own Christmas Eve tea and bring relaxing warmth to your day. You can enjoy this festive tea at any time of year, though it does make Christmas time a little extra special.
In November, we still have an abundance of apples available locally, from the Farmer’s Market, from our own apple tree harvest, and from friends with an abundance. Take advantage of some of that apple bounty with preparing ingredients for this sweet, spicy, but mellow tea blend. With an abundance of apple peels on hand I’m drying them in my dehydrator, and crafting a special apple spice herbal tea.ย It has a sweet, spiced apple flavor, rich in quercetin, for respiratory and digestive health benefits and it makes an awesome alternative for a special Christmas Eve Tea!
How to make Chris’ apple spice Christmas Eve Tea blend:
Initial Preparation:
- Dry apple peels in your dehydrator (or in the oven on low).ย They are done when they are dry and crispy, and snap easily in your fingers.
- Grate fresh ginger, and dry in the dehydrator with your apple pieces.
- Use the seeds of two vanilla beans in another recipe, save the pods for this one.
Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 cups dehydrated apple peels
- 1/2 cups elder flower, dried
- 1/4 cups cinnamon bark pieces
- 2 tablespoons ginger pieces, dried
- 2 tablespoons cardamom pods, crumbled
- 2 vanilla beans, opened and scraped (Use seeds for a different recipe, just pods for this one)
- 1 tablespoon black pepper corns, cracked
In a large mixing bowl place your dehydrated apple peels, dried elder flower, cinnamon bark,ย dried ginger pieces,ย cardamom pods, 2 vanilla beans and black pepper corns.
Coarsely break up harder spices with a mortar and pestle.
Mix with your hands until well blended, breaking up larger pieces in your fingers. All pieces should be small enough to fit in a tea strainer.
Place all ingredients in a wide mouthed quart jar. Let the spices sit together for 1-2 weeks for flavors to intensify, blend, and meld. Letting it sit will help amplify the vanilla specifically.
Use 1 tablespoon of the mixture per cup of water. Steep covered for 15 minutes.ย Enjoy this Christmas Eve tea either on your holiday of choice, or at any point you need a warming pick-me-up throughout the winter months.
More About This Tea:
This apple and elderflower tea is ideal for fall and winter respiratory or digestive support.ย It is rich in warming spices to warm up circulation and help your immune system to function optimally.ย And it’s delicious.
The elderflowers offer some immune support for winter viruses, as well as a slight addition to the vanilla flavor of this sweet, spice tea.ย If you don’t have any elderflowers, you can substitute another mild-flavored herb such as Tulsi basil (memory, cognition, and helps with stress), raspberry leaf (female hormonal balance), stinging nettle leaf (mineral supplement, allergy support, men’s reproductive health), burdock root (liver and gall bladder support) or rosehips (Immune and circulatory support) or hawthorn berries (heart and circulatory support), depending on the benefits you want to get from the tea.ย I had some elderflowers already dried, so I used them.
This herbal tea blend is caffeine free and also makes a lovely Christmas gift, or Hanukkah gift or hostess gift paired with a fun mug and a tea ball. Or add a jar of it to a gift basket along with a small jar of apple butter, or apple jelly, and some homemade crackers or Christmas Cookies, like these Pizzelle Ginger Bread.
If you mix it up in the margins (that time in your day when you are waiting), while you are peeling apples for apple sauce or dried apples, you will be 1/2 way to your home made gift goals, too.
Back to You:
What’s your favorite tea or baked good to make for small Holiday gifts? Share it in the comments, and help inspire other’s holiday creativity!
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