Thyme and Lime Echinacea Tea

Sometimes I’ll have some congestion that doesn’t quite break down with a hearty cough. No worries, I have just the recipe for that.

• 12-16 Cups of Water
• 9 Limes
• 3 Bundles of Fresh Thyme
• Echinacea Tea bags (follow directions on the box for how many bags/oz water)
• Honey for sweetness
• An inch or two of ginger (optional)

This recipe yields about 8-10 cups of tea.

Fill a stock pot with water, wash off the thyme, ginger, and limes, and then quarter the limes.

Dump it all in the water and bring it to a boil. Once boiling, I like to let it continue for about 3-5 minutes.

Afterwards, turn down the fire to a simmer and press the lime slices against the side of the pot with a spoon (or other flat tool) to squeeze out all of the lime juice.

Over a fine-mesh sieve, and your bowl of choice, fish out the ingredients with a spider. Once everything has been removed from the mixture, dispose or compost. Pour the rest over the sieve to get out anything you’ve missed.

A cheese cloth could help here if you don’t like any pulp. I like some pulp in my drinks, so the sieve works just fine for me.

Add your echinacea teabags and steep according to the instructions on the box. Usually, it’s 1 teabag per 8-12oz, so this recipe might require about 10-12 tea bags.

Once that’s done steeping, remove the teabags and gently stir to incorporate.

Ladle some of the mixture into your teacup or mug of choice, and add honey to your preferred taste. I recommend tasting it without sweetener first so you can gauge just how much you’ll need to offset the bitterness.

Experience revealed to me that too much honey is possible with this drink.

I tend to make more than I need, and store it in a glass pitcher for later. I like it cold and warm, so trust your mood with this one 🙂

Enjoy!