Matt and I are big fans of tea. Almost every evening we have a cup after dinner, and we often have one in the morning too. Traditional Medicinals is our favorite brand, and we've long been loyal to their Pregnancy Tea and Lavender with Chamomile versions. They're decently priced from Amazon--about $25 for 6 boxes of 16 bags, which comes out to about $0.25 a cup--but when you have two people drinking it once or twice a day, that's anywhere from $15 and upward a month, which gets pricey. The other thing we never liked was having to throw away our teabags (which you can compost, if you have a compost heap) and recycle so much packaging.
Enter the Bulk Herb Store, which I learned about from Tammy's Recipes. They have awesome prices on bulk herbs, by far the best we've found. They also have a Mama's Red Raspberry Leaf Brew, which contains alfalfa and nettles and peppermint (in addition to red raspberry leaves) and is practically identical to Traditional Medicinals' Pregnancy Tea. It's sold for $7.20 per half pound (8 oz), and by weighing a TM teabag I determined that there's less than 1/10 of an ounce of tea in each teabag. That means that a half pound of loose tea should yield over 80 cups of tea, at a cost of around $0.09 a cup. The lavender chamomile tea is comprised of those two herbs, plus lemon balm, which we ordered from the Bulk Herb Store at the following cost:
Lavender flowers 1/2 lb ($3.55)
Lemon Balm 1/2 lb ($6.40)
Chamomile flowers 1/2 lb ($4.20)
So we paid under $15 for a pound and a half of herbs, which should yield about 240 cups of tea, dropping the cost of that particular beverage to around $0.05 a cup. From what I can tell, adding on $8 for shipping takes our average cost per cup back up to $0.09 for both kinds of tea--still over a 50% savings from teabags, and we create a lot less waste in the process. Plus it's kind of fun to mix up our own loose-leaf tea; we have both a tea ball and a tea infuser which both work quite well.
Enter the Bulk Herb Store, which I learned about from Tammy's Recipes. They have awesome prices on bulk herbs, by far the best we've found. They also have a Mama's Red Raspberry Leaf Brew, which contains alfalfa and nettles and peppermint (in addition to red raspberry leaves) and is practically identical to Traditional Medicinals' Pregnancy Tea. It's sold for $7.20 per half pound (8 oz), and by weighing a TM teabag I determined that there's less than 1/10 of an ounce of tea in each teabag. That means that a half pound of loose tea should yield over 80 cups of tea, at a cost of around $0.09 a cup. The lavender chamomile tea is comprised of those two herbs, plus lemon balm, which we ordered from the Bulk Herb Store at the following cost:
Lavender flowers 1/2 lb ($3.55)
Lemon Balm 1/2 lb ($6.40)
Chamomile flowers 1/2 lb ($4.20)
So we paid under $15 for a pound and a half of herbs, which should yield about 240 cups of tea, dropping the cost of that particular beverage to around $0.05 a cup. From what I can tell, adding on $8 for shipping takes our average cost per cup back up to $0.09 for both kinds of tea--still over a 50% savings from teabags, and we create a lot less waste in the process. Plus it's kind of fun to mix up our own loose-leaf tea; we have both a tea ball and a tea infuser which both work quite well.
2 comments:
Yay! :) Glad you're enjoying your teas. :) I love freshly brewed herbal teas! :)
The shipping prices for the Bulk Herb Store seem to have risen a lot. (?) I thought for sure it was a lot less for shipping when I bought mine. I am investigating a more affordable source for herbs (but with equal or better quality) called Mountain Rose Herbs. In fact, I'm getting ready to blog about tea this week... :)
have a blessed weekend! :)
Tammy
Try a bit of virgin coconut oil in your tea. About a teaspoon. It's delicious. It's an appetite suppressant. More importantly, it contributes to the myriad health (say "immune system") advantages of coconut oil in this pandemic-fearful era.
Post a Comment