What a fantastic morning we spent in the wonderful Kingshill House on Saturday 3rd August. Kingshill is the perfect venue for a workshop – the rooms are light and airy, and there is plenty of space for walking around to explore the different herbs that I’d brought along.
The workshop was an introduction to blending herbal teas, and the twelve participants were all amazing and brought so much passion and shared their own knowledge with the group. We explored herbal families and taste, particularly how we need to overcome the bitterness of many herbs. (Yes, salt, sour and sweet works well in combination). We then created teas to help us feel energised and also more relaxed. I’d brought along around thirty different herbs and it was a delight to see the participants get stuck in and master the art of blending.
August is the perfect time with many flowers – such as marigold – at their best. I’ve picked all of my flowers now to dry including chamomile, marigold and the tiny purple sage flowers which are amazing. I either leave them out to dry around the house, or have most of them hanging in muslin bags in the spare room!! It is all a bit of an experiment this year.
Blending kits are go!
I’m pulling together my first herbal tea blending kits containing a bumper batch of 20 herbs or these smaller kits of 5. I’m optimising the packaging to be reusable or compostable. Nearly there with that. Hopefully by the end of the year I will be set up to put the kits, and my own tea blends, on sale.
Thank you
Thank you again to all of the workshop participants who made this session so much fun. Thank you to Kingshill house people for letting me run a workshop there. I hope I can do more blending workshops there in the future. The next one is in Nailsworth at the end of October.