Pulsegleaner
Garden Master
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2014
- Messages
- 3,551
- Reaction score
- 6,984
- Points
- 306
- Location
- Lower Hudson Valley, New York
Hi all,
First a little background
On the advice of my doctor I have been cutting down my caffeine consumption. To that end I have been trying to keep my consumption of actual tea to special occasions, or times when I actually DO need to stay awake (for example, I will drink some New Years Eve, so I can see the ball come down).
Therefore I have been playing around with a lot of herbal teas so substitute and give me a little variety (my day to day is a tulsi (holy basil) peppermint mix, but it would get boring to drink that every day, so I have something different on the weekends.
Some of these have not worked out well, like the Lao Ying (Old Eagle) tea which I found unbearably smoky (they said it had "the aroma of camphor". To me it actually has "The aroma of campfire"
)
But one that has been a great success has been Ironwort, aka Greek Mountain or Shepherd's Tea. I have found myself quite fond of it's taste.
Well, now to the point. While preparing a batch a few months ago, I noticed little black specks floating on the water, and more to the point in the bag the tea had come in. After confirming with my parents they had not eaten any bread or other things with nigellia (love in a mist) seeds. I was left with the conclusion that these were actually Ironwort seeds.
Since then, several of the packets I have opened have yielded some seeds (I think based on the greener color of those packets, they were rush dried and didn't have time to shed all of their seed. Or maybe they were picked late.) and I now have a fairly decent sample.
So I can try and grow my own next year. Have no clue if it will work (Ironwort is supposed to be xeric, so it may be too wet for it here) but I can try.
First a little background
On the advice of my doctor I have been cutting down my caffeine consumption. To that end I have been trying to keep my consumption of actual tea to special occasions, or times when I actually DO need to stay awake (for example, I will drink some New Years Eve, so I can see the ball come down).
Therefore I have been playing around with a lot of herbal teas so substitute and give me a little variety (my day to day is a tulsi (holy basil) peppermint mix, but it would get boring to drink that every day, so I have something different on the weekends.
Some of these have not worked out well, like the Lao Ying (Old Eagle) tea which I found unbearably smoky (they said it had "the aroma of camphor". To me it actually has "The aroma of campfire"
)But one that has been a great success has been Ironwort, aka Greek Mountain or Shepherd's Tea. I have found myself quite fond of it's taste.
Well, now to the point. While preparing a batch a few months ago, I noticed little black specks floating on the water, and more to the point in the bag the tea had come in. After confirming with my parents they had not eaten any bread or other things with nigellia (love in a mist) seeds. I was left with the conclusion that these were actually Ironwort seeds.
Since then, several of the packets I have opened have yielded some seeds (I think based on the greener color of those packets, they were rush dried and didn't have time to shed all of their seed. Or maybe they were picked late.) and I now have a fairly decent sample.
So I can try and grow my own next year. Have no clue if it will work (Ironwort is supposed to be xeric, so it may be too wet for it here) but I can try.
