How To Make Tuber Tonic November 16 2015

Tuber tonic is made of roots, bark and berries! Boil it!

Place 2 Tbsp Tuber Tonic in 1 Quart water, bring it to a rolling boil. Turn your heat down and simmer for two minutes. Strain as you pour it out. It keeps well in a thermos, or can be reheated easily. You can refill the water and boil it again, another two times.

Tuber Tonic is 100% Organic Herbal Tea, made with turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, elderberries and black pepper. It's delicious and good for you, especially if you boil it.

Big Changes to Mendocino Tea Company July 29 2015

Tuber Tonic, with all it's deliciousness (is that a word?) and it's healthy attributes, will be dominating the web site from now on. The original blend, which features turmeric, ginger, elderberry, cinnamon and black pepper will head the page.

Many more creations will be added over time. The first, Super Tuber Tonic (double turmeric for those who need it more than the other ingredients) is already there as well. I have been studying spices and herbs and creating more regularly. Some to look for in the future are: Tulsi Tuber Tonic, Uber Tuber Tonic (with Black Cumin Seed), Tuber Tonic Express (with a lovely Darjeeling added for a bit of caffeine), and Tropical Tuber Tonic (with Hibiscus, which makes a fantastic Iced Tea).

Your old favorites like Mendocino Sunrise and Mendocino Sunset, will still be on the page, but will be more in the background. We strive to keep the page easy to use when you are ordering, but will also use it for a more prominent blog, and interesting facts, articles and pages that we would like to share.

Please share your thoughts with us, we are looking forward to hearing from you!

 

Sip Tea While I Tell You A Story July 28 2015

One of the reasons that I am such a great believer in organic food and drink, and good health in general is that I wasn't always like this. Here in Mendocino in the seventies, I ran a nightclub, of sorts, called Toad Hall.

We had a wonderful time, with great music, hard drinking and too many drugs (let's be honest here), and some of us survived to tell about it to this day.

Mostly, no one cared, and it was a part of Mendocino that was not talked about with anything but disparaging tones. If you live long enough, though, people become curious and want to know what happened, so here we are.

I spoke about Mendocino in the seventies and Toad Hall last Sunday at the Kelley House Museum here in town, and I remember lots of great stories, many more than I could tell in an hour or two. I have decided that they should be shared. Here's one of my favorites:

I used to arrive at The Toad (nickname) late, and pull in directly in front of the front door, always in a hurry. In those days I drove an old pink Volvo sedan. My friend Michael's dog was in the back seat, I left my purse in the front seat, as usual, and the keys in the ignition.

It was a regular night: loud,raucous, smoky and dusty; with lots of folks drinking a bit too much for their own good. I did notice one couple having quite an argument in the middle of the evening and the wife storming out, but din't think much about it.

At about 2:30 am, after we had cleaned up a bit and shut things down, Michael went to let his dog out of the car. He came back and said, "Where did you park the car?" It was gone, aparently with the dog and my purse still in it.

I called the Fort Bragg police to report the missing car (and dog) and was told there was probably not a chance in Hell that I would see it again. I said, "Are you kidding? It's a pink Volvo...how hard could it be?" 

I went to bed, and got a call about 8:00 the following morning from the police department. They said, "We've found your car in an empty lot in town. We put the keys under the mat, your purse is still on the front seat, and we gave your dog some water."

Farmers Market Blend Beginnings January 23 2015

I began making Farmers Market Blend tea many years ago when I actually went to the local Farmers Market to sell my tea. The rules there were that vendors could only sell those things that they grew. So I made a blend out of herbs and flowers that grew in my yard.

I have a great profusion of Lemon Balm and many kinds of mint growing in my yard, and I love roses, especially the fragrant ones, so that became the base of my homegrown tea. I bought a dehydrator, and dried the flowers and herbs as I picked them.

The tea was a combination of Lemon Balm, Mint, Raspberry Leaves, Blackberry Leaves, Nettle Leaves, Pineapple Sage and Stevia Leaf. I would pick those herbs that grew best according to the time of year, and dehydrated them. Then I mixed the herbs together and added whatever flowers I had.

There are lots of colorful, edible flowers beside roses that grow in profusion at different times of year. We have Roses, Calendula, Viola, Pansies, Fuchsias, Nasturtiums, Lavender and Honeysuckle to name a few.

The Herbal Infusion was always different, always delicious and always beautiful. It became quite popular. Then I realized that I was having trouble keeping up with demand, and there seemed to be no way I could make enough tea to keep for winter and early spring. So I made a blend that included not only those herbs and flowers that I could grow, but a number of ingredients that I could buy organically and knew to be especially healthy. That blend, and the healthy aspect of those ingredients will be the subject of another blog.

It's fun to think about how some of the Mendocino Tea Company's blends came into being.