# not to be a lesbian but oh my god oh my god

Charlotte Gainsbourg | ph. Gilles Toledano

I used to hate herbal tea. I drank it for medicinal purposes, but it was a chore. But then I learned The Secret, the one that makes herbal tea not only palatable, but enjoyable. Tasty. Delightful, even. I will tell it to you now:

Herbal tea is not tea.

Duh, you say, but let me explain further.

Herbal tea is not tea, and it will suck if you treat it like tea.

Actual tea, as in the tea plant Camellia sinensis, has very specific steep times and temperatures. This varies by variety (green vs black vs white), but it all comes down to a common factor:

Tea is high in tannins.

Tannins make stuff bitter. Tannins are released from the tea if you heat it too high or too long (again, specifics depend on variety but the point stands). If you steep it too long, BOOM, tannins. You put it in water that is still boiling or hasn’t cooled down enough from boiling? TANNINS. You get nasty, bitter, burnt-grass-tasting tea.

Herbal tea almost universally doesn’t have tannins. This means you almost universally can’t over-steep herbal tea. And in fact, and listen up because this is the practical part of the secret, you need to steep it way longer than actual tea if you want to get the flavors into the water!

Those recommended steep times on your herbal tea box are based off actual tea (black tea to be specific). It’s usually somewhere around 5-7 minutes, but what you actually need is something like 10-15 minutes.

And most conventional tea-making wisdom will tell you to not put the water in too soon after boiling, but again, that’s for tannin-rich Camellia sinensis. You could literally boil* your herbal tea if you wanted. It might make it slightly less sweet depending on variety, and you will probably bust your tea bag doing so, but my point is that you should put as hot of water as you can get into your steeping vessel. As in kettle starts whistling, pour it in immediately over the tea bag. Then let it sit for 10-15 minutes as discussed above.

The only exceptions that I know of personally are meadowsweet, red raspberry leaf, and yarrow, and only one of those is a very common herbal tea ingredient. And honestly, it’s not even high enough in tannins to affect your whole cup if it’s just part of a blend.

So please stop drinking weak plant-adjacent water and start getting the actual flavors you paid for.

*I have actually just dumped herbs in a pot and boiled them and it made a delicious tea. I used lavender, chamomile, lemon balm, and mint, all of which I’d grown myself, and literally just tossed the fresh-picked sprigs into a pot and boiled the crap out of it for close to 10 minutes because I forgot about it while I was rearranging the freezer. It was delicious and not bitter at all despite being a color I can only describe as “positively murky,” and I could taste every single one of the herbs I put in there. It also made my whole apartment smell like a sunny meadow. Do with this information what you will. Am I recommending you boil the devil out of your herbal tea bags? Not necessarily. But I’m also not not recommending it.

my brain - don't drink the fish tea

me, ladleing a big cup of fish tea - wait what

the trolls who park in the ‘gun control’ tag to harass anyone who says gun control might be a good idea and proselytize on behalf of the nra’s push to make more money this quarter off of racist suburban paranoia are vastly more dangerous to impressionable young minds than any banned adult content but HERE WE ARE

the trolls who park in the ‘gun control’ tag to harass anyone who says gun control might be a good idea and proselytize on behalf of the nra’s push to make more money this quarter off of racist suburban paranoia are vastly more dangerous to impressionable young minds than any banned adult content but HERE WE ARE

we been drinkin

NICE.

@pussylightlytoasted

I saw this a couple days ago and I knew I shoulda tagged you in it but I didn’t know if you fucking remembered that argument I got into lmfaoooo

You took our peoples as slaves but aren’t taking refugees. 

Louder for the people in the back

Ok so today I was on the bus with another trans guy and we were talking about how hard it is to get testosterone. The waiting lists, the price, all the doctors you have to go to, that kind of stuff. Except, we were calling it ’T’, like you do when you’re both closeted and in public.

Then suddenly the elderly lady sitting behind us was like ‘young men, either I’m going crazy or you both have never heard of supermarkets, they have shelves full of tea there! Do you need directions to one?’

To which my buddy starts to explain, because why not. ‘Well you see, we’re both trans, and… ’

The lady didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. ‘Oh no, I don’t mind that at all! Now do you want to know how to get to a place that sells tea? I’m actually heading there right now!’

We let her take us to the supermarket. We let her show us, excitedly, where the tea was. We both bought loads.

This is beautiful

people who aggressively hate cats are weird

people who hate cats are who u should look out for. they hate cats because cats will not be controlled by a human and that fact upsets so many people.

#her face in the last one

@13lizardsinatrenchcoat is a criminal.

I’m just waiting for the water to cool down a bit so I can drink this without burning my tongue. Then we’ll all get to go on this flavour journey together.

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

It’s called broth

…

I’m gonna level with you guys– I completely forgot about broth.

hot ham water

some guy: uhhh there’s a leaf in your water

person who’s about to invent tea: oh haven’t you heard?

I’M SCREAMING I DID NOT KNOW THIS

THIS 🙌🏼