Cool and Refreshing.........

........Cool and refreshing but I am not talking about the weather. It continues to be very hot here and rains almost every day. A big glass of lemon verbena tea is what is cool and refreshing! My plant grew enough again for me to make another pitcher of my favorite tea.

 It has a strong lemon aroma and flavor. It grows better in warm climates although it could be grown in a pot in the north and taken indoors in the winter.  It is deciduous so it will not have leaves in the winter.

This is what you need to make the tea. This is not a very large pitcher.  I steep the leaves, including stems along with one bag of black tea and one mint. Of course you could use fresh mint leaves.

These leaves can also be used in salads.

This is about 1/3 cup of sugar and it was more than I needed.  Lemon verbena is a sweet lemon.

I didn't pour the hot water into this antique glass pitcher. Just poured it all in for the picture shoot after steeping and cooling a bit.

The last wistful days of summer are upon us so we need to relax, sniff, sip and savor. There is nothing better to do that with than a big, ice cold glass of lemon verbena tea. I wish I could hand a glass of this to every one of you!

I would expect that some of you have already had some breezes wispering of fall. Savor every moment. From simple things come simple joys and oh the joys that open up to us if we are waiting and looking for them.

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