A cup of roses

You probably know that baby wisdom. You should taste everything that attracts your attention. Especially if you think it’s beautiful. And when it comes to such a beautiful creation of nature as flowers, well… it’s difficult to resist temptation.

This childish instinct, a mixture or curiosity and inspiration, was tempting me while I was looking to the dried rose buds I bought for tincturing. Even dry they were still looking beautiful. So, I decided to make a tea from them. An Internet search delivered basic guidelines and I could start to experiment.

For a cup of a rose bud tea you need just two or three buds per cup (about 100 ml). You place them into a pre-warmed cup, pour over with boiled water (should be about 90 C) and draw for just two or three minutes (one or two minutes extra is not a problem at all). It’s better to cover a cup to keep the essential oils inside.
I decided not to take the rose buds away – they give a nice finishing touch to a very delicate fresh green colour of tea. They can give tea a bitter taste, but probably you finish your tea before the bitterness appears.

I was really surprised with a taste. It combines dry herbal note with rose and deep vibrant honey-like undertone (as you might know from the rose absolute). It’s not too rosy as I was afraid of and really delicate. To my taste I prefer it without sugar, but a little bit of honey might go pretty well with this tea.

Besides its delicate taste and amazing look this tea is very good to calm the nerves and even to relief headache. Rose has also been used as a remedy against hay fever and nasal catarrh.

Yesterday evening I tried a good synergy between rose and lavender. It was amazing to feel the effect of just a teaspoon of lavender blossoms and three rose buds. My head became calm, my eyes sleepy and I could easily fall asleep. Rose and lavender tea was a nice closing of the day. Now I understand a Dutch proverb “to sleep like a rose”…