Tag Archives: herbs teas coffee az

French Press Coffee & Tea Maker Complete Bundle – Item of the Day

Posted on May 3, 2018 by Modern Survival| 8 Comments

pressEvery 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 my favorite French Press on Amazon.  It is marketed as the French Press Coffee & Tea Maker Complete Bundle, but I will be honest I am far more interested in the press itself rather than the spoons that come with it.

The thing I love most about this press is it comes with FOUR screens.  I run mine with all 4 installed.  A few times a week I unscrew the filter holder and wash them all out, that is all the maintenance I do and that takes about 1 minute flat.

I will also admit we have come to like the little metal spoon with the s-turn in the handle.  We keep it on our kitchen island hung on the inside of a small glass, we use it to stir drinks and any drips go in the glass.

Previously I featured our favorite tea infuser, and it is what I reach for when I want to make a single cup, but almost every morning we fire up our French Press.  It makes 34 ounces in one go, or two of our really big cups.  If you use the recipe from that article, this is the way to use it with a full sized French Press.

Put in 3 tablespoons of tea.  Make your first batch, for each additional batch just add one additional tablespoon and do another run.  I do up to 6 runs a day like this, (we drink a lot of tea) and always sweeten with liquid stevia.  Since I always try to do a value add with these posts I will give away another of my tea blends today, do not let the simplicity of this one fool you.

Jack’s Three Mints Tea (yep lemon balm and bee balm are actually mints)

This is a great sipping and contemplation tea.  It also is my favorite tea to make for iced tea.  Done that way with a bit of lemon and stevia or honey it is quite amazing, just pre sweeten with honey if you are going that route while it is still hot.

This brings up an interesting issue.  While I grow a lot of herbs, I drink a ton of tea and like to buy high quality bulk herbs for ease and convenience.  Guess what, far as I can tell it is all but impossible to find bulk (think by the pound) Bee Balm, (AKA monarda or “wild bergamot”) anywhere. If you ever do let me know the source of it please.

And I have tried, big time.  Anyway if you are in the market for a French Press again this is the absolute best value for the money I have found.

Remember you can always find the TSP Item of the day by just going to TspAz.com and by shopping at TspAz.com anytime you shop online you help support TSP and the work we do here no matter what you buy.

P.S. – I first reviewed this item in June of 2016 well over a year ago.  Since then I have formulated many teas, here is a new one I am really enjoying.

Folks that have made other teas of mine in the past will recognize it as a modified version of Jack’s Morning Blend, doing away with the Lemon Balm and doubling the Lemon Grass.  This small change pays a big dividend in flavor.  In short you get a lot more lemon hit from Lemon Grass than Lemon Balm.

I also cut back the Chamomile and let the Lemon Grass and Mint become the stars of this blend.  I like it even better than the original, and that is what is so rewarding about blending your own teas, discovering things like this over time.

Jacks Morning Blend – Nine Mile Farms Tea

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SweetDrops Liquid Stevia – Item of the Day

Posted on April 30, 2018 by Modern Survival| 13 Comments

steviaEvery 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 SweetDrops Liquid Stevia and I recommend the 4oz bottle because it lasts a hell of a lot longer, though you can get it in a 2oz bottle or go the other way and get a twin pack of 4oz bottles.  This is one of those cases though were the more you buy the better the price.

I took a bit of time to come to love stevia, it is sweet, but no it doesn’t taste exactly like sugar.  It does taste a lot better than every single other calorie free sweetener I have ever tried including sucralose.  What I learned worked was to use just one drop say in tea, taste it, then add one more, until I found my perfect amount for a given cup.  After about a week of using it, you realize it doesn’t taste that different from sugar after all.

The deal is your body is highly tuned to sugar, it knows exactly what it is supposed to taste like, one reason those of us who grew up in the 70s know those of you who are younger have no idea what Coke is supposed to taste like!  Corn sugar is not cane sugar!

It is kind of the same with Stevia, it just takes some getting used to.  Once you do though you may very well prefer it to sugar.  The liquid alone means you can sweeten cold drinks and it will actually dissolve.  I use this all the time in my morning tea and in our amazing low carb strawberry limeade.

If you are looking for stevia on Amazon, SweetDrops Liquid Stevia is your best option.  It is on prime, a 4oz bottle is only about 20 bucks with free shipping, I paid 8 bucks for a one ounce bottle at a store recently because we needed it.  I have tried other vendors on Amazon, with poor shipping times and damaged and returned by the shipper orders due to shitty packaging.  While it may seem expensive I drink 8-10 cups of tea most days and a bottle lasts me about 3 months.

If you check SweetDrops Liquid Stevia has 561 reviews and 4.5 stars and if you actually read the one star reviews it will hurt your faith in humanity!  Seriously.  My favorite negative review is, “I don’t like this one either”. sigh.

The only valid criticism is that the dropper is a bit short so you end up with some at the bottom that is hard to get out.  This is a non issue to me, when I get close to running out, I simply order more.  Then, when it gets difficult to get the last bit out, I open the new bottle and use it about two weeks, by then you have some head space and just pour what is left in the old bottle into the new one.  Also frankly if you tilt the fricken bottle, you can get most of it out easily.  Again some negative reviews on Amazon make my faith in humanity fall further than it already is.

In the end guys being serious, excess sugar consumption is the number one cause of lifestyle disease in the modern world.  Yes this site is The Survival Podcast, and man this is a survival topic, getting off sugar could save your life.

Here is a simple low end break down, say you drink 4 cups of coffee or tea a day, with one tsp of sugar per cup, and 4 “soft drinks” or similar at 12 ounces each a day.  We will go low and say those have about 2 tsp of sugar per drink.  Well that is 12 tsp a day, 84 tsp a week.  That is almost 310 carbohydrates a week, in pure sugar form, jacking up your insulin resistance.

From a purely caloric standpoint, that is 1344 calories, if you are on a 1500-2000 calorie a day level, well that is almost an extra day of eating per week, 52 times a year.  And this is if sugar is your only vice and you only consume it in drinks!  And here we are talking self sweetened ones, look at what happens with say 4 cokes a day.

We toss out the tea, one coke has 39 carbs, x 4 is 156 x 7 = 1092 grams of carbs a week!  Cut that in half down to two a day, you are now at 546 carbs a week.  Can you even begin to know what that does to insulin resistance.  Calorically 2 cokes a day is almost 2000 calories a week!  If we go back to 4 a day, 8000 that adds up to four full days of eating to every week.  With no nutrition at all.

If you are thinking, but I don’t do that, what about your kids?  Kids seem to be able to eat this crap, and they can but if they do by adulthood they are addicts, and that amazing insulin resistance always goes away in the end.  Just something to think about.

Why not give SweetDrops Liquid Stevia a shot in your coffee or tea.  Try whipping up some of my special morning tea blend or my amazing strawberry limeade.  Trust me folks kids love the limeade, so do big kids.  Sugar isn’t evil but read a label it is in almost everything any more.  All it is doing now is creating lifelong customers for the medical industry and drug companies.  Take your health back and this is just one simple way to start doing that!

Remember you can always find the TSP Amazon Item of the day by just going to TspAz.com and by shopping at TspAz.com anytime you shop online you help support TSP and the work we do here no matter what you buy.

 

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Frontier Co-op Organic Valerian Root – Item of the Day

Posted on April 17, 2018 by Modern Survival| 5 Comments

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 Frontier Co-op Organic Valerian Root.  Before we continue due to the content below I have to give a disclaimer, I am not a doctor, I don’t even pretend to be one on TV.  While I am a life time user of herbs, I am also not a certified herbalist, nothing I am about to say should be seen is medical or nutritional advice.  It is just my personal experience.

So about two years ago I set out to create a “bed time tea”, my goal was a tea that would set the mind at ease and get you to sleep fast.  I built this tea on valerian root for many reasons.  You can find a wide range of Valerian’s uses at Web MD, chief among them though are insomnia and relaxing muscle and relieving aches and pains.

Now there are a ton of teas out there with Valerian in it, but I like to mix my own teas, simply put buying herbs in bulk saves money and you can make custom blends.  Last week I mentioned in my interview with herbalist Cat Ellis that I had a “night time tea that tasted like gym socks but would knock you flat out” and that resulted in a ton of requests for the recipe.

So I decided to feature Valerian today and give away that recipe, all but two ingredients can be purchased at Amazon, I’ll give a few sources for them in the P.S. below.  Note that the parts below are by volume, not weight…

I make this tea at about 2 heaping tablespoons to the cup, note that this doesn’t taste good.  Frankly it isn’t that bad, I am setting the expectation bar low however, unlike my other teas you are not drinking this one for the flavor.  I do sweeten this one with honey.

I can’t explain this but if you want this tea to work my best results seem to come from going to bed within 30 minutes or less of consuming it. If you wait much longer the effects seem to change to relaxed but alert.  However, if you go strait to bed you generally crash and sleep solid though the night, at least I do.

It also for me seems to increase the vividness of my dreams.  Note that I am a long time student of lucid dreaming and have trained myself to recognize dreams and awaken within them.  This is beyond the scope of this review but there is lots of info online about doing it.   I will talk just a tiny bit about it in today’s on air IOTD segment.

So if you want to give this a try, you can simply mix it up and give it a go, but I will caution that I take no regular medications and I don’t know what interactions these herbs could have with pharmaceuticals.  So please check with your doctor before using these are any herbs if you have any physical conditions or side effects.  Again I am not a doctor or certified herbalist, I am not giving medial advice, I am just telling you my personal experiences.

So check out Frontier Co-op Organic Valerian Root today.

Remember you can always find the TSP Amazon Item of the day by just going to TspAz.com and by shopping at TspAz.com anytime you shop online you help support TSP and the work we do here no matter what you buy.

P.S. – The herb you can’t get on Amazon for some reason is Damiana Leaf.  You can make the tea without it, it will still work.  That said it is a wonderful herb that in my view really enhances this tea.  If you skip the Damiana increase the Valerian to 4 parts to rebalance the recipe a bit.

P.S.S.  – Here is a simplified recipe if you just want to give it a try without all the other herbs.  Go with 2 parts of Valerian to 1 part of mint.  This will be a quite sedative tea and aid in falling asleep for many people.  Again I recommend hitting the pillow no more than 30 minutes after consuming it.

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Frontier Whole Chamomile Flower Tea – Item of the Day

Posted on March 21, 2018 by Modern Survival| 7 Comments

chamomtea

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 Frontier 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 the TSP Amazon Item of the day by just going to TspAz.com and by shopping at TspAz.com anytime you shop on Amazon you help support TSP and the work we do here no matter what you buy.

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.

 

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Davidson’s Earl Grey Bulk Tea – Item of the Day

Posted on December 15, 2017 by Modern Survival| Comments Off on Davidson’s Earl Grey Bulk Tea – Item of the Day

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 Item of the day Davidson’s Earl Grey Bulk Tea.  Davidson’s has some of the best deals in organic teas on the market if you buy bulk.  This tea is wonderful and can be brewed with either a french press or simple tea infuser.  If you prefer your tea in a conventional tea bag Davidson’s does make this same tea in bag form, you can find that here.

So what is Earl Grey Tea other than the favorite toddy for Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Star Trek universe.  Earl Grey tea is a tea blend which has been flavored with the addition of oil of bergamot.  Bergamot is a variety of orange.  This citrus fruit is often grown in Italy and France. The rind’s fragrant oil is added to Black tea to give Earl Grey its signature pungent punch. So you would think the favor would be orange like.

It really isn’t, to me the addition of bergamot oil creates a velvety feel and a flavor that is more like well, bee balm than anything else I can think of.  I am not sure but I think this may be why bee balm is also called “wild bergamot”.  As clearly an orange and a member of the mint family are completely unrelated, the similar property of each in tea is the only reason I can see for the commonality of the name.

Anyway I love this tea for its flavor, and I love Davidson’s for their value.  You get a full pound of 100% organic tea for about 15 bucks.  One teaspoon of tea makes a cup, so let’s just say that is a lot of cups of “Tea, Earl Grey, Hot” to go though.   Anyway I make this tea at two teaspoons to full french press batch which is two large cups.  As that is more than two 8 ounce cups I do my spoons heaped just a bit.  Pour over boiling water from my electric kettle and let steep for 3 minutes.

Now here is why I love a french press for tea.  At three minutes when you push down the plunger, you are effectively separating the tea from the water, so your tea will not become too strong or overly tannic.  I then sweeten with stevia (perhaps honey once a week) and at times enjoy a bit of lemon with it as well.

So give this stuff a try, it does have caffeine but far less than coffee.  If you want a decaf version they have that too but I don’t really care for decaffeinated teas myself.  Caffeine free is one thing, decaffeinated is another.  So check out Davidson’s Earl Grey Bulk Tea today and I think you will enjoy it even more that Captain Picard does, I mean this is the real deal not some phony baloney replicated knock off.

Remember you can always find the TSP Amazon Item of the day by just going to TspAz.com and by shopping at TspAz.com anytime you shop online you help support TSP and the work we do here no matter what you buy.

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Frontier Organic Lemon Pepper – Amazon Item of the Day

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Modern Survival| 2 Comments

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 Frontier Organic Lemon Pepper.  As always I recommend buying herbs/spices by the pound, buying by the ounce is a suckers game.  Also while I don’t eat 100% organic, I feel in this case you really should. 

Lemon pepper is made with lemon zest (the yellow part of the peel).  The citrus industry is one of the most heavy users of pesticides in the world.  When you think about these things being sprayed and the out side of the peel being removed and eaten, well, if you want a conventional product go for it.

Okay so as you might imagine this one is going to come with a recipe, but not just any recipe, the best lemon pepper herb chicken you will ever and I mean ever eat.  If you are making a lot just double the recipe, and it will work with any chicken but I formulated this for either boneless skinless thy or breast.  If you are doing breast cut it into thinner and smaller slices before starting.

Jack’s Lemon Pepper Herbed Chicken

  • 1/3rd cup of olive oil
  • Juice of 1/2 of a lemon and the zest
  • 2 oz of white wine
  • 2 tsp of rice wine vinegar
  • 2 tsp of lemon pepper
  • 1 tsp of sugar
  • 1 tsp of salt
  • 1/2 tsp onion powder
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp paprika
  • 1/2 tsp rosemary (if it is large needles crush it with your fingers a bit)
  • 1/2 tsp of basil
  • About 1 teaspoon of dry mustard – or as much as you need to emulsify.
  • Skinless boneless chicken (as much as you want to make, the above will do about 4 breast halves or about 8-10 thy cutlets.

Wait?  What the heck is emulsify?  Okay this marinade is made of oil, lemon juice, wine and rice vinegar.  Do you know what happens when they are put together, well in short they don’t get together.

The wine, vinegar and lemon juice all blend and the oil floats on top.  How can we get a good uniform marinade like that?  Well we can’t!  So we need an emulsifier, this lets us blend an oil and a water based liquid and keep them together.  For instance mayonnaise is an emulsification.  Made mostly of eggs and oil.  This emulsification is much easier though.  The dry mustard will allow us to mix oil and the other liquids and suspend them while keeping the mustard flavor very low compared to “prepared mustard”.

So take a ball jar and put all the ingredients except the chicken into it.  Put the lid on and shake the hell out of it.  Like for a good 45 seconds to a minute.  Stop shaking and let it sit for about a minute, take a look and see if the liquids stay mixed.  It is normal for the herbs to settle some but the liquids should not separate.  If all is well continue, if it is separating give it another bit of dry mustard and repeat.

Put all your chicken into a large zip lock bag, shake the marinade one more time to get the herbs all suspended again and dump it into the bag.  Push most of the air out of the bag, massage the bag and work the marinade all over everything.  Put in a bowl (in case it leaks, which would suck without the bowl) and put it in the fridge.  Leave it over night, a few times during this period massage up the bag and flip it over.

The next day remove the chicken and put it on a few paper towels for about 30 minutes at room temp.  This is important or you will be frying in a pool of oil and it will be hard to get  good brown.  Then fry in a pan of your choice or grill until done.  Don’t over cook it!  Cook to 145 if you use an instant read thermometer, but I can just tell when it is done by feel.

You can make this with any lemon pepper and it will be very good, you may find yourself addicted to it.  But if you want a superior organic product consider adding Frontier Organic Lemon Pepper to your pantry today.

Remember you can always find the TSP Amazon Item of the day by just going to TspAz.com and by shopping at TspAz.com anytime you shop on Amazon you help support TSP and the work we do here no matter what you buy.

 

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Starwest Botanicals Organic Lemongrass – Item of the Day

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Modern Survival| 1 Comment

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 Organic Lemongrass.  This stuff is a key ingredient in my “Jacks Morning Blend Tea” which you can find outlined below.

I decided to list it as an item of the day today though because something different all be it similar is in my tea cup on my desk today as I type this.  Today I looked into my last jar of Jack’s Morning Blend and sighed as there was but a bit of dust in the bottom.  Same as the day before!  Yesterday I just went out an grabbed a handful of mint from the garden for tea.

Today I stopped piking and went upstairs to make a new batch, and realized strait away I piked out also on ordering new herbs!  Very little mint, some chamomile, bit of lemon balm, decent amount of green tea and a ton of lemon grass is what I had to work with.  So I scrapped the mint and lemon balm and changed the ratio.

I came up with what I am now calling “Lemongrass 321 Tea”  Simply 321 is for a 3-2-1 ratio of three ingredients.  Here is how you make it, all parts measured by volume, not weight.

Jack’s Lemongrass 321 Tea

This may seem way similar but it is totally different and far beyond simply removing the mint and lemon balm.  First the star of the show is now the Lemon Grass, moved to first chair violin position it dominates the blend.  With a wonderful lemony taste and a grassy for lack of a better work character.

The Green Tea is in second chair now, bringing tannin and balance and a bit of caffeine to the party.  Everything is rounded out by the buttery finish of the Chamomile, which is about the only thing really similar to the original morning blend.  This is another one of those teas you have got to try.

Note that  you could substitute blackberry leave in the above 321 blend as well to go caffeine free but I have yet to try that.  Personally I think it would be good but not as close a substitute as the morning blend because the green tea in this plays a much bigger role in things.  For those that want the original morning blend recipe here is that one as well.

Jacks Morning Blend – Nine Mile Farms Tea

Let me tell you though why when there are so many options I choose Starwest Botanicals Organic Lemongrass over other brands.  It as always comes down to quality and value.  First at under 16 dollars a pound it is cost competitive with anything out there including many non organic options.

The big thing to me though is the product itself.  I have tried a lot of lemon grass that is supposed to be “cut and sifted” that looks a lot more like the siftings than the cuttings!  Not this stuff it is large and in charge, cut to about 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces with almost no dust at all, not even in the bottom of the bag!

And folks a pound of lemon grass is a LOT of lemon grass, and this stuff does make a great tea all by itself by the way.  Don’t get me started on the packs of dust sold as “lemon grass tea” for 3-4 times the cost of buying this in bulk.  Not to mention that ground up powdery crap clogs up infusers and french presses and ends up with a bunch of it in your final product as well.

I like this so much right now I am working on a formula for a Lemon Grass Ginger Mead, but that recipe will come down the road and likely make use of some orange and lemon zest.  In any even check out Starwest Botanicals Organic Lemongrass today, I think you and your family will really enjoy it.

Remember you can always find the TSP Amazon Item of the day by just going to TspAz.com and by shopping at TspAz.com anytime you shop online you help support TSP and the work we do here no matter what you buy.

 

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Forlife Tea Infuser – Item of the Day

Posted on July 5, 2017 by Modern Survival| 17 Comments

infuserEvery 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 the Forlife Tea Infuser.  We tried a bunch of different ones and found this one to be absolutely the best.  At around 18 bucks there are lower cost infusers for sure, but I have yet to find a better one.  Like many that drink loose teas I tried many of the “ball type” infusers, sorry but they are nothing but a pain in the ass to fill, a bigger pain in the ass to clean and they just don’t last a long time.  Not to mention for many herbal teas they just don’t have the capacity.

I also tried the tiny hanging baskets, back to small capacity, and pain in the ass to clean.  I also tried the snap mesh ones, again same story.  The day I got the Forlife Tea Infuser I took all the rest and put them into the donate to Goodwill Box.

This thing is heavy stainless steel with micro tiny holes.  It will last as long as you do unless you say drive over it with your car or something.  1200 plus reviews and 94% are 4 or 5 stars.  Here are the features I like most about it.

  1. High capacity
  2. Tiny mesh so you don’t have floaters
  3. Easy to clean, just swish it in water to get it perfect
  4. The lid keeps the seam in while it infuses
  5. Turn the lid upside down and it becomes a drip tray after infusion

Now honestly I use my French Press most days when I make tea in the morning, because I get two big cups per run.  And I and my wife drink several cups each in the AM.  But when I just want a single cup I still grab my Forlife Tea Infuser.  And today I am going to give away my recipe for our morning tea.

Until today this was a closely guarded secret as I was considering taking it commercial under the label of “Nine Mile Farms Tea”, but I decided to just make it well, open source.  You can make this for a fraction of the cost of tea in bags or pre blended and be sure 100% what is in it, and with one substitution you can make it caffeinated or decaf and it will tastes about the same.  I was drinking WAY too much coffee daily and this got me off of it like with no issues at all.

Jacks Morning Blend – Nine Mile Farms Tea

One day I ran out of Green Tea and used Blackberry Leaf, the taste was well, the same.  That is how I usually make it now.  The parts are by volume they are NOT BY WEIGHT.  I mix this up in a huge bowl so I have plenty for a month or so, and use a small glass to measure my parts.  If you want to make a smaller amount use a table spoon or reduce the 3-6 ratio down to 1-2.   Sweeten with your choice of sugar, honey or what I prefer, liquid stevia.

I brew it at two tablespoons per large cup.  Here is a secret though.  In a French Press, when you want to make a second run, just leave the old stuff in, and add one tablespoon to it, you can do this for about 4-5 runs, plenty for a day for two people.  In the Forlife Tea Infuser just add a slightly heaped teaspoon to your last run.

Even if you don’t get a Forlife Tea Infuser give  my tea a shot it will blow you away with how good it is, and while buying all the herbs if you don’t have them may seem expensive, compare it to buying pre made teas and the cost per serving is really low.  I just store mine in ball jars, and by the way a Canning Funnel is really helpful in getting the tea into those jars.  And REALLY mix it well before jarring it up.  And mix your jar often as you use it.  To help leave about an inch at the top of the jar when fill it.

I may give away some of my other tea blends in time, but this is my absolute best daily drinker, check out my video below to learn more.

Remember you can always find the TSP Amazon Item of the day by just going to TspAz.com and by shopping at TspAz.com anytime you shop online you help support TSP and the work we do here no matter what you buy.

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Davidson’s Organic Peppermint Leaves – Item of the Day

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Modern Survival| Comments Off on Davidson’s Organic Peppermint Leaves – Item of the Day

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 Davidson’s Organic Peppermint Leaves which are a great deal at $13.55 a pound.

As many of you know I grow a lot of peppermint on my homestead so you may wonder why I buy this product.

Think of it this way, to make a pound of dry mint you need to harvest about ten pounds.  You then need to dry it, sort it, sift it and then you have your pound.  Now I use fresh mint all the time but I also make up blends for use as daily teas, mead infusions, etc.  If it takes me two hours of jacking around to make a pound of dry mint I can buy for 14 bucks, I am valuing my time at 7 dollars an hour.

It comes down to this…

  • Sheer Volume
  • Ease of Use
  • Value of my Time

My number one use for this product is my daily drinking tea, I love this stuff and try to make up about 4 quarts every time I blend it.  We give some away but I honestly go through about a quart a week.  So we are back to time value equations, do one blending, drink tea for a month.  Here is that recipe.  All parts are measured by volume not weight.

Jacks Morning Blend – Nine Mile Farms Tea

That tea is one every singe person who has tried it loved.  Especially sweetened with stevia.  Another blend I do is simply 50% peppermint to 50% lemon balm.  This makes a great tea on its own, I also make a mead with it at 3 lbs of honey to the gallon, infused with 3/4ths of a cup of this blend.

All by itself it makes a great tea, I use about 4 level tablespoons to my large French Press or about two to a large cup with my Tea Infuser.  If you have paid attention you will notice that Davidson’s is one of my go to’s when it comes to herbs and tea.  They have an incredible value to price ratio, are almost always available in organic and simply taste great.

Remember you can always find the TSP Amazon Item of the day by just going to TspAz.com along with all of our Amazon reviews.

P.S. – For some reason Amazon has lumped ALL Davidson’s tea reviews together, this renders the reviews on this item essentially useless.

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Davidson’s Gunpowder Green Tea – Item of the Day

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Modern Survival| 1 Comment

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 Davidson’s Gunpowder Green Tea.  As most of you know I drink a lot of herbal teas, so you may be wondering why I am featuring this item.

While I do occasionally make this tea stand alone as either hot or iced, I mainly use it to blend with my herbals.  I do this for two reasons.  One is that it adds great flavor and depth to many herbal teas.  The other is for a kick of caffeine into an otherwise caffeine free tea.

So what is up with the whole gunpowder thing?  Don’t worry there is nothing from Hodgdon in there and it doesn’t smell of cordite.  It is simply the shape and form of the teas.

Gunpowder tea is a form of Chinese tea in which each leaf has been rolled into a small round pellet. Its English name comes from its resemblance to grains of gunpowder. This rolling method of shaping tea is most often applied either to dried green tea (the most commonly encountered variety outside China) or oolong tea.

Gunpowder tea production dates back to the Tang Dynasty 618–907. It was first introduced to Taiwan in the 19th century. Gunpowder tea leaves are withered, steamed, rolled, and then dried.  Rolling renders the leaves less susceptible to physical damage and breakage and allows them to retain more of their flavor and aroma.

Here is a tea recipe I like to make with this tea…

The truth though is you can use it with just about any tea you fancy, also you don’t have to be held to my parts of each ingredients.  I recommend people make up very small amounts using say a teaspoon for your “parts” to find what works best for you.

Of course for loose teas you either want a good infuser or french press.  Either way I think you will be quite pleased if you give Davidson’s Gunpowder Green Tea a try.

Remember you can always find the TSP Amazon Item of the day by just going to TspAz.com and by shopping at TspAz.com anytime you shop on Amazon you help support TSP and the work we do here no matter what you buy.

P.S. – For some reason Amazon has lumped ALL Davidson’s tea reviews together, this renders the reviews on this item essentially useless.

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