Works-for-Me-Wednesday - Raspberry Leaf Tea

Red Raspberry Leaf Tea is a wonderfully healthy herbal tea, full of all kinds of great vitamins and minerals. It's especially beneficial during pregnancy, toning the uterus and such. BUT I'm not a fan of the taste. I bought some during my last pregnancy and used about half a box of it the whole pregnancy and then it sat in my cupboard until this pregnancy. But this pregnancy I found the solution. . . I don't remember now exactly how I stumbled upon it, I think I read something that pointed out that RRL tastes similar to regular black tea, and it occurred to me that while I'm not a fan of black tea (hot or iced) I DO like "sweet tea" (the sicky sweet southern variety, not the fruit flavored northern versions). And over the years I've found that I can make sweet tea at home that's not AS sweet (read as full of sugar) as what you buy but still, it's alot of sugar. So, in an effort to make RRL tea palatable AND healthy I tried making RRL into sweet tea using honey, and it works! It doesn't taste EXACTLY like sweet tea (both because of the honey adding flavor and because RRL isn't exactly the same flavor as black tea) but it's pretty close and pretty tasty :) Here's my recipe:

Brew 2 bags of RLL tea in 1-2 cups of water for the recommended time (I think it's like 5 min) then pour tea (squeezing out the teabags to get the tea as strong as possible) into a quart jar, stir in a tbsp (give or take) of honey till dissolved. Add ice and cold water to fill jar and then let sit at least a little while to let the ice melt some. I just keep the quart jar in the fridge & drink from it as I'm thirsty.

You could probably use more tea bags for a stronger tea, the recommendation for pregnancy is 2 cups of tea per day, and I always struggle to get enough fluids anyway so I use the 2 tea bags and double the water so that I drink more and I'm happy with the taste as well, but obviously it can be adjusted to personal preferences.

While honey is still "sugar" it has health benefits a well so it's a healthier sugar. . .

And that's what works-for-me.