Stash Lemon Spice Tea
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Stash Lemon Spice Tea

For our Lemon Spice, we blend Chinese Dragonwell Lung Ching green tea, Yunnan black tea from China, and Nilgiri black tea from India. This premium tea blend is then flavored with sweet cinnamon from Sri Lanka, freshly cut citrus peel, and natural lemon oil. The result is a refreshing, slightly tart, juicy lemon tea that is equally delicious hot or iced any time of the day.

The tart, fresh lemon is the fruit of the tree Citrus medica. Discovered in northern India, the lemon spread to the Mediterranean by the end of the first century. It was brought to the new world in 1493 and became one of the most important cultivated crops in California by the mid 20th century. The lemon is widely used in cooking for its acidic quality, in pastries, desserts, sauces and of course with fish. The lemon peel contains lemon oil and is extracted to flavor and scent foods and many other products.

Cinnamon is the dried bark of a tree from the Laurel family and is native to Sri Lanka. It is one of the first spices sought after, with references in the Bible and to its use in ancient Egypt. The Portuguese colonized Sri Lanka for cinnamon until driven out by the Dutch in 1636, who began cultivation of the cinnamon previously gathered in the wild. The Dutch monopoly of the cinnamon trade ended in 1796 when the English East India Company took control.

Cinnamon trees were brought to Indonesia, India and the Seychelles,however cinnamon from Sri Lanka is regarded as the best quality. The evergreen cinnamon tree grows to over 30 feet in the wild, but is kept shorter under cultivation. Cinnamon trees thrive in tropical maritime climates at low altitudes. The bark is harvested or peeled from the trees and made into quills by hand rolling and drying in the sun. The quills can be ground or processed into oil for cooking purposes. The sweet, somewhat woody aroma is fragrant and strong. The flavor is distinctive and warm.

For further reading:

• Ortiz, Elisabeth The Encyclopedia of herbs, spices and flavorings, Dorling Kindersley 1992 PP 108-9