Morning Tea Spell (Flavors?)

[Susurrus]

Hi, so to simplify this for you, you like 2 kinds of teas & would like to broaden your horizons either with bagged or loose-leaf & right now store-bought is what you have to work with.

1st… for loose leaves you will need a tea strainer. As @Amaris_Bane mentioned Tamed Wild has subscription boxes that come with some amazing loose leaf teas. I have been receiving their boxes for a little over a year now. They are great. & I have actually gotten 2 different tea strainers from them. 1 has a quartz crystal at one end that goes with a ritual for the Fall/Winter I can’t remember exactly when I got the second one. However, they are cheap, come in different shapes, easy to use, so however you get one is just fine. Maybe Amazon? Wal-Wart? I’m sure they have some kind to start with.

Store-bought is a good option & an easy one too! If you go to a store go to the tea section & look at the flavors & think of intentions for the teas based on the ingredients or follow the group teas on Thursdays or Spells8 Daily Devotional has a tea recommendation each day of the week, so you could start by trying those teas too. Honestly, that’s what I did when I first joined. I went by either the daily devotional or the group tea for flavors & got as close as possible before I moved on to the tea strainer & loose leaf. Prior to joining Spells8, my tea collection consisted of Lipton Black Tea.

Before we move on to that though, some easy ones to start with would chamomile, chamomile & lavender, black tea, mint teas, chamomile & mint & lavender, different ginger ones. Things like that. I like Celestial Seasonings but Twinings has some great seasonal teas too. My 2 favorites are the Winter Tea (it’s in a blue box) & I think it’s called Christmas Tea (green box) but they are only out around Thanksgiving to New Year’s or I have to get them on Amazon.

It’s okay to take baby steps, you don’t need to completely leap out of your comfort zone, baby steps are fine too.

[mary25]

Oh, yes! I love tea and I especially like teas and herbal teas because they are an accessible, food safe source of herbs for spell work – for drinking, baths, potions, rinses, sprays, dressing candles, etc.

Badia hibiscus tea (sorrel) is inexpensive and delicious. No caffeine. It is rich in antioxidants and lowers high blood pressure.The ruby tea is associated with Venus (for some, also Mars) and is useful for love spells, Friday spells, protection and cleansing. Look for it in the Hispanic foods section of your grocery store.

Bigelow Perfectlyl Mint is black tea blended with Spearmint. Spearmint is also very easy to grow and you can add it to any other tea. It’s a super food that has been shown to help women with polycystic ovarian disease, it helps regulate blood sugar and is good for digestion after a meal. Spearmint is also good for your lungs/respiratory system. To avoid caffeine, choose Bigelow Mint Medley, which includes Peppermint or make your own tea with fresh mint. Mint is associated with Moon spells, Venus, cleansing spells, money spells, etc. You can burn it or use it to dress a candle. – it is a great, multi purpose herb.

Chamomile (Badia, Bigelow, etc.) tea is associated with the sun and Sunday rituals and is a must-have! It helps you relax and can promote sleep. It has a lovely, pale yellow color (is made from flowers) and is good with honey, IMO. It has been used for centuries in medicine. It has anti-inflammatory properties, so you can brew it and cool it and apply to any skin or membrane (except maybe eyes) this is inflamed, even add it to your bath or rinse your hair with it (esp. blonde hair). It can be used to treat eczema and it has cancer fighting properties. You can use chamomile in a variety of spells, such as luck, protection or money spells, even using it to rinse your hands, burn or dress a candle.

If you have had tea in a Chinese restaurant, you have likely had jasmine tea, which is fragrant and delicate. It’s a green tea scented with jasmine flowers. Jasmine is associated with the moon, Neptune and Monday rituals. Like many teas, it is rich in antixoidants and is good for digestion. The smell is relaxing. Jasmine tea or incense is a good offering for moon spells, and is good for psychic deveopment, divination and love spells.

Something new I am experimenting with is adding kitchen herbs, like basil, oregano, roesemary, thyme, tarragon, parsley and other green herbs to tea or making them into their own tea. You can use fresh or dried herbs for this. Add about a teaspoon to a cup. You can also blend them with a tea. So, for instance, I like Bigelow Raspberry tea and I can add a teaspoon of thyme or tarragon to that. All those herbs are incredibly healthy and have their own magical properties, so it’s a two-fer Sliced fresh ginger in hot water with lemon and honey is also a restorative tonic that boosts the immune system. I gave some to my sister last week – she had appendicitis – and she loved it. Crushed strawberries and other berries are also good as a “tea.”

[Amethyst]

I just went to the supermarket and started trying some. I did not like Lapsang Suchong, too smokey, but most of them I liked! My favorites are Earl Grey, Lady Grey, and Spiced Chai.

[ValentineMoonBabe]

www.iherb.com is MY FAVORITE place to buy teas. They have many brands to choose from (like the awesome suggestions above ), and their product descriptions almost always include the metaphysical benefits so if I can’t remember I’m not constantly cross-referencing. I also get any herbs I don’t grow or forage and any oils I don’t make from this site as well… And they have a ton of other stuff too like face moisturizer, vitamins, etc… All for great prices and fast shipping.

[ValentineMoonBabe]

@mary25 .,. And everyone really lol … I tried tea with strawberry leaves, namely the leaves from the itty-bitty wild strawberries that grow in our yards around here in MO, and they are so tasty! And smell amazing when burned as well!

[BryWisteria]

Hooray for all of the tea-lovers in the forum!

Several people already mentioned getting a tea sampler- I agree that is a great way to try out a bunch of teas without having to worry about getting stuck with one you don’t like!

If you have a tea store like Teavana near you, oftentimes they have ready-made teas for you to sample (although covid may have ruined the samples!), it’s a good way to try a bunch of teas for free

If you have an herb garden, you may be able to make some tasty teas with the plants you are growing! There’s a great discussion about healthy and magickal “green” teas here and you can check the list of Tea Meditations on Spells8 to help you learn the magickal properties of teas as you try them

Also, I can’t help but add that all tea-lovers are warmly invited to the weekly Group Tea Ritual held in A Sacred Space (the ritual for the week is uploaded every Tuesday and the ritual runs every Thursday). Come share your brews and show off your favorite teas!

Good luck, @MoonDrifter18- I hope you can find some wonderful new teas that you enjoy!

[MeganB]

I really enjoy Yogi Tea’s Kava Stress Relief and their Honey Lavender Stress Relief lol I need all the stress relief and calm I can get.

[christine13]

Tazo has a couple of great flavors! The Passion and Wild Sweet Orange are great! Teaforte.com has great loose leaf tea!

[christine13]

Great idea with the wild strawberry leaves, I have those growing in my yard as well! I’m definitely going to try that this summer!

[mary25]

@ValentineMoonBabe Yum! I’m going to try that

[Susurrus]

My favorite is Butterfly Pea Tea (??) I forget the 2nd word before tea, maybe it’s just Butterfly Tea It’s blue though! & it’s really good too.

[Eliza_01]

I should drink more teas, but when I do, one of my favorites is making fresh ginger tea at night. Almost all stores carry fresh ginger, opt for organic if the price is not too jacked. Organic or not, peel the outer skin, grate it (I use an inch of ginger for every two cups - can use less if too strong). It smells so nice doing this, so I don’t mind these extra steps, for me it feels therapeutic. Put the grated ginger in something that you can step into hot water, wait for it to get to a level that is drinkable.

The teas in the grocer section (Celestial, Yogi, Twinings, etc), they are very good in my experience. Recommended here, can pick up an assortment and see what you like. Mentioned here and I love it as well (Lemon Zinger by Celestial) - with a little milk or almond milk. I love chamomile, all black teas, and even Limpton tea (very common but so good).

Not many grocers carry these, but if you come across them, these are very good: Oregano tea (edit it’s in the mint family and not a savory taste), it tastes like the mint teas but without the burn, it’s very smooth. Also, Japanese brown rice and roasted teas, so nice.

[Eliza_01]

Been meaning to try that type of tea, if you add lemon or something acidic it turns purple. It’s so cool. I’m so trying it out soon!

[Susurrus]

@Eliza_01 YES ! That’s the 1 , I love that one & I heard that it has some really good health benefits. I think we discussed it last year & that’s where I learned about it, @BryWisteria may have brought it up too. I honestly can’t remember exactly, but it’s a great tea & the lovely shade of blue or any hue of blue through purple depending on what you add to it, such as citrus are so gorgeous Tastes pretty good too. I’m really trying to remember because there was a big discussion about it & all kinds of properties for it.

[BrightBear]

I am borderline obsessed with tea. I have this weird thing about them being organic, so I probably miss out on a lot of terrific teas because of it. And organic tea is typically more expensive, which increases the cost of my tea habit. Heh. Anyway, my favorite store-bought teas are from Traditional Medicinals and Yogi. Traditional Medicinals makes a wonderful tea called Tulsi Sweet Rose, which is fantastic! Like @MeganB, I love the Kava Stress Relief and Honey Lavender Yogi makes. Pukka makes a few organic teas that I enjoy, especially Pukka Love, which has rose, chamomile, and lavender. I also have a loose leaf tea subscription from a brand called Plum Deluxe https://www.plumdeluxe.com/, which are some of the best teas I’ve tasted in my life! They always send a little sample bag along with the tea of the month, so it’s nice to try different things regularly. Oh, and here’s a little something I learned that I thought was interesting; technically, all teas have caffeine. Herbal teas are tisanes. I like learning little tidbits like that, so I figured others might too.

[BrightBear]

@Susurrus, @BryWisteria, I recently got some butterfly pea flowers! I think the one I got is by Majestic Teas. The bag says it’s good for eyesight and skin. I don’t know if that’s true for me yet, but I’ll let y’all know.

[Susurrus]

Oh you’ll love it, I have to look into it again & post what I find.

[Eliza_01]

Health benefit too, so have to read about that. Am going to do a search for the discussion you’ve mentioned. Totally got me so excited about this, am going to order some tomorrow morning!

Edit: found the posts on the Butterfly Blue Tea! Thank you for letting me know about that!

[Susurrus]

@Eliza_01 awesome news that you found them. I did a short search but couldn’t remember what kind of post it was or anything about it. Then life happened.