What am I drinking?

[wrenb]

It's amazing what you can get used to. I grew up drinking strong English tea with milk in it, apple juice, coffee (this replaced apple juice) and cranberry juice with 7-up. Water tasted too stale for me to drink, and herbal tea was too insipid.

Now my usual drinks are water, herbal tea, ginger beer, milk, and good beer. I've gone heavily towards strong and bitter flavors. Looking at that list I'm also heavily into home-made beverages (except the milk).  My tenant upstairs is a homebrewer, so he makes the ginger beer (from my grandfather's recipe) and a lot of the beer in our house. The other day I realized that I have never even tasted mass-market cheap beer. Which sounds pretty elitist, but that's just what I like the taste of.

I'm sitting here looking at my glass; it looks like it's iced tea. Actually it's red clover (like from the lawn!) with a pinch of mint, infused for over 4 hours. And it tastes remarkably good. I would never have thought that I'd actually enjoy odd herbal teas.

Comments

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

there's nothing wrong with avoiding mass market beers: most of them taste like piss anyway (he says, showing his beer snob ;))

[licon.livejournal.com]

I was about to say, most macro beers are horrible and what convinced me I didn't like beer till last year.

[wrenb.livejournal.com]

Well I knew you'd be on my side! :) I've never had the desire to drink a macro-brew; I couldn't even buy them for boiling bratwurst in.

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

:)

Rogue; Left Hand; Ommegang. All worthy of trying.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

I grew up on odd herbal teas *g*. Tho mom never did get around to growing safe to drink chamomile, just the not safe species...

[wrenb.livejournal.com]

I was going to plant German Chamomile this spring. My herbals don't say anything about species that aren't safe to drink. Further information please?

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Do not recall, I was Very Small (10ish?). I can do some digging, tho there's a chance that food scientist paranoia may be involved. (rue is also on the 'rents Do Not Grow list)

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Ok, first pass turns up stuff that's jibing with my vague memories. Mom was growing Roman Chamomile, Anthemis nobilis. This is the stuff she treated as toxic. The stuff she treated as safe is German Chamomile, Matricaria recutita. The Wikipedia article specifically mentions drinking German for tea, and gives warnings about overdose (it takes a *lot*). Roman there's minimal mention of medical use, except externally.

I don't have any chamomile tea on hand, so I can't check how the commercial stuff is labeled. Mom and Dad tend to be very paranoid about herbs, so not letting us eat it is not a certain indicator of toxicity.