Making Green Tea

We make iced green tea by the half-gallon, and here's how we do it.

We start with a 16-oz steeping teapot from Amazon (link in the picture):

Then we throw in one heaping scoop each of green tea and dried stevia leaves.  Each heaping scoop is just over half of a 1/4 cup measure:

We get our loose tea and dried stevia leaves from San Francisco Herb Co.  Link here for tea, and link here for stevia .

We heat up some filtered water until it's boiling:

After the water has stopped boiling, we pout it over the tea and stevia, and set the timer for nine minutes:

Meanwhile, we add two or three inches of filtered water to a half-gallon pitcher.  When the timer goes off, we hold the teapot over the pitcher of water, and press up one side of the bottom, which lets the tea escape:

My husband makes his tea first and adds more filtered water until his pitcher is 3/4 full.  He also adds some ice.  Then he heats up more water, fills the teapot again, re-using the tea, and sets the timer for 13 minutes.  When the timer goes off, I prepare my tea in the same way, filling my pitcher about 2/3 full.  We leave our pitchers out on the counter until the tea has cooled a bit before storing in the refrigerator.

Different types of tea turn out with different colors.  It took us a while to figure out how we like it.  My husband likes his tea strong and sweet, while I like mine weaker and not as sweet.

Do you make more than one cup of green tea at a time?

Pretty Food!

I made a green smoothie today.  Into the blender I put the following:

• 1 can coconut milk
• 1/2 bag spinach
• 1/2 small bag frozen cubed mango
• 3 apples
• 1/2 cup green tea

Here's what it looked like when I started to blend it:

Here's what it looked like while it was blending:

Here's what we do with it when it's done.  Well, OK, we actually put the salsa jar lids on and store them in the fridge ...

I used a spatula to get the last of the smoothie out of the blender jar, and I let DH lick the spatula.  He declared it good enough to eat, and told me that it was a Pretty Color!

Usually DH doesn't like to eat it, and only because it's green.  For example the other half bag of spinach was used in an "apple pie" smoothie a few days ago, and he refused to eat it.

Here are the ingredients for the Apple Pie Smoothie I made last week.  I usually use coconut milk, but wanted to use up the last can of coconut water:

• 1 tall can coconut water
• 3 capsules psyllium fiber (it was still quite liquid)
• 3 small apples
• 1/2 bag spinach
• 1/2 small bag frozen strawberries
• 2 teaspoons (if not more) apple pie spice

Have you ever made a fruit smoothie or a green smoothie?

What Happened to my Iced Tea?

Here is a bottle of iced green tea with stevia:

From Food

One morning I thought it would be helpful to add ionic silver to my regimen. I added some ionic silver to my tea and took it to work with me. Imagine my surprise when I looked up on my desk a couple hours later to this:

From Food

I tried one sip, and it was awful, so I took it home and took a picture of it.

If anyone knows why it turned color, please let me know.

Blueberry Smoothie

I just made tomorrow's lunch smoothie:

• 1/2 head romaine lettuce,
• 1 Cup blueberries
• 1 Apple
• 1/2 Cup iced tea

I often use iced tea instead of water.