HOME-MADE TEA: CEYLON TEA, BLACK TEA, ENGLISH BREAKFAST TEA:
What is it really made of? It's made of the flowering bush Camellia.
Camelia Sinensis is a white-flowered Camellia, and is a valuable tea-making plant.
I do not know how to process this, yet I do have some ideas on how it's done.
Clip the leaves with the small branch or twig, bunch several together, and hang it upside down from the likes of a garage-rafter, and leave them there until they are dry, having gone brown in colour. Perhaps in your own home, you could organise some way of hanging up the branches.
Then remove the leaves and crush them a certain amount.
Store in airtight jars.
Some or most of the usual tea-manufacturers use some sort of chemical to make the tea blacker, just because they believe people want a strong looking tea. I would tend to omit that.
It may be useful for those working on their project of a cottage-industry or similar, selling tea, to sell it as: brown tea, if omitting the blackener. It would make no difference in the taste, just the look of it, a paler in colour tea.
Of course, try a prototype: find the right Camellia, and try to process it. When your tea prototype is tasted, then you would know if it's success.
PLEASE: ORGANICS. It is wise to consider people don't want a whole lot of chemicals, they want a nice-tasting cup of tea.
For those whom believe what the cultists say: we counteract: they say it's a sin and makes people unhappy, to drink tea or coffee, it's their lure to find more customers trying to find out what is making them unhappy. Usually, these days, it's nothing to do with tea or coffee, it's to do with the wars and tragedies we hear about and feel like we cannot do anything to help. And quitting tea and coffee will not help those in the disaster-zones, in fact, it makes the problem worse. Tea and Coffee are not about spiritual debt, nor spiritual merit, and while not always healthy, are not a sin nor a crime. They are meant to be VEGETARIAN, and we like the Organics movement here.
This document is not copyright, and is put on the Net for free, to inform and educate. We will not charge money for this information. In fact, the way the world's economy is going, we would encourage anyone to go into a small business of their own, specifically about foods, the more people that grow their own foods, the fewer starving people there are.
FOOD CO-OPERATIVES: INCLUDING CHURCH FOOD-CO-OPERATIVES:
We would encourage people to gather up even 250 people to put their money into a common "pool", or "kitty": some amount, even weekly, into one fund, to buy some land and get going and do your organic gardening, making such a surplus that some can be sold at a Farmers Market, some sold at stalls and at Fairs and Markets, and some surplus to give to the Church's Food-banks or such as the Salvation Army and other Churches whom give free meals: they need those fresh fruits and vegetables for that reason, too. If one person gave a huge amount of money to the food-fund, that person to do less work on the new land; while another whom gave little or nothing only because he or she had little or nothing to give, that person to work a lot more on the land. I "See" a van, the Churches may have vans for transport, or even several Churches joined in on this co-operative idea, the van could be used to go to the land with the people there. Have a nice picnic, often, please. Grow many trees all around this land, as the problems of society are grim and we don't want rude ones looking at your children. Better the land is NOT on the main roadside, due to the traffic vehicle fumes that are causing some children the disease A.D.D.
It may be that some Churches won't have enough funds to buy the land, please look for other Churches to form the co-operatives, together.
And remember to grow your Camellia Sinensis. If that's unavailable, try finding other sorts of Camellia - there are many and some of them are very similar to Camellia Sinensis. Look on the Net, search the Library bookshelves and 2nd-hand bookstores. Happy tea-drinking.
AND: HOME-MADE COFFEE: There are websites about this COFFEE-SUBSTITUTE: Making your own Dandelion-Root Coffee. I have found that Dandelion-root coffee made in a percolater, is just as nice as other sorts. Put in the browser: "Home made Dandelion-root Coffee Recipe" and find more than one recipe-page about this. Before leaping in on this, remember that digging up the Dandelion to process it, is very, very hard work, it's NOT for the faint-hearted.
