Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.
Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is Starwest Botanicals Whole Chamomile Flower which is sold by the pound. This stuff is awesome, I use it in many of my teas and in my infamous “Three Flowers Blend” for mead.
There is a lot to like about this item. First and this is important to me, these are whole flowers as you can see in the photo above. I have purchased many different brands of chamomile and many times I have gotten what looked more like dust and chaff than whole flowers.
Next this is an Organic product. I would love to buy organic or local all the time, but we all have financial limits. With herbs though, especially in bulk you can generally justify the very small cost increase. This product is actually less per pound than some competing non organic options.
Lastly is taste, and face it if you don’t get good flavor what is the point. Any medicinal or nutritional value is going to be depleted if flavor is depleted. This stuff has a wonderful sweet flavor and a characterist I can only describe as “buttery”.
Here are some of my favorite recipes for using this stuff.
Jacks Morning Blend – Nine Mile Farms Tea
Spearmint Orange Winter Warmer Tea
Both of these are best made with a quality tea infuser or a French Press. When I make them with a french press I use four tablespoons for my first batch and then just add 1 additional tablespoon for each additional batch that day.
Three Flowers Blend (3FB)
Three Flowers Blend started as a tea, frankly I didn’t really like it as a hot or even a cold tea. The heather imparts a bitterness that isn’t really pleasant in a sipping tea. But it intrigued me so I tried making a mead with it and man was it amazing. People love it.
Per gallon of mead, use 3/4th of a cup of 3FB, 3 pounds of honey and 1 Tablespoon of Fermax. Ferment for 30 days with a pack each of Cuvee and Pasteur Blanc yeast. Rack and ferment at least 15 more days until completely clear. Then bottle.
Finally I want to point out that Frontier Whole Chamomile Flower tea is damn good all by itself. Just about 2 tablespoons to the large cup or 1 tablespoon to a standard tea cup and it is wonderful tea. It is also a great ingredient in herbal salves and in soap making.
Additionally chamomile is wonderful for bees, just make a concentrated tea with your French Press, dump that into your sugar syrup when you are making it up and feed as normal. DO NOT put loose leaf tea directly into your syrup, it will make a mess you can’t imagine. I don’t know this from experience, I know it from common sense, trust me on it.
Also did you know Chamomile tea suppresses mold? I have learned this growing micro greens. I just make up a strong tea and put it in a spray bottle and spray young micro greens with it to suppress mold from messing them up and it works great. I also toss a pinch in my sunflower soaking bucket for my sunflower spouts for the birds and no mold.
Lastly, chamomile also makes wonderful herbal cough drops you can make yourself, here is an article on doing that with any herbs of your choice. It is super easy and much better than what you buy in the store.
So with all that going for it consider adding Frontier Whole Chamomile Flower to your pantry and preps today.
Remember you can always find all of our reviews at TspAz.com
P.S. – You will note that all the links above are for one pound bags. I buy in bulk because it is cheaper, they store forever if you put them in sealed ball jars and I use a lot.
You will also note that all of the linked items are Davidson’s, Frontier or Starwest Botanicals. I have never been unhappy with any of these companies. So I usually shop all three for any bulk herb and pick the best price because to me they are all beyond stellar. The one exception is heather flowers, because they do not carry them. If you want to make some 3FB just know 4 ounces of heather flower is a LOT of heather and unlike many other herbs you likely won’t use it for many other things. The supplier I linked to for heather is called Mountain Rose Herbs, I did that because there is no economically viable option for this product on Amazon.
Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.
Time for another round table discussion. I have some announcements and some stuff that has just popped up today. I have some really great listener questions and feedback as well.
