The alchemy of good tea

Many years ago, when I flew with Older Daughter to Ohio to drop her off at nanny school, I had my first opportunity to visit Lehman's Amish Store in Kidron. It's a place I'd wanted to see for years and years and years.

Needless to say, it exceeded all my expectations and I came away deeply impressed.

On that occasion, I made a few small purchases, including a special blend of tea called Bilbo Baggins Breakfast Blend for Older Daughter.

Well, she loved it. She regularly ordered it online ever after (not from Lehman's, but from a different source). The last time she ordered multiple boxes was sometime in November of 2019. By the time she used up what she had and decided to order more, she learned that particular blend had been discontinued.

Bummer.

She was talking about this tea recently, and how much she enjoyed it. Don is always up for a research challenge, so he decided to sleuth out the ingredients of this particular blend. He found it consisted of English breakfast black tea, chai, orange peel, and red clover flowers.

So ... Older Daughter ordered these baseline ingredients and started experimenting. And eureka, she figured out the blend.

Here's the homemade version of the Bilbo Baggins Breakfast Blend tea:

• 1 teaspoon English Breakfast tea

• 1/4 teaspoon chai

• 1/4 teaspoon ("heaping" quarter-teaspoon) of orange peel

• 2 red clover heads

She puts this blend in a tea strainer for a hearty cup of tea. She also adds about half a tablespoon of powdered milk (or a splash of fresh milk) to complete the cup of comfort.

The nice thing about making up a blend like this from its component ingredients is how much cheaper it is. She used some pint canning jars to assemble the ingredients in easy form, and stored the rest of the bulk ingredients in the pantry.

Ah, the alchemy of good tea.