"Mama, makin' da tea?"

Sometimes our kitchen table becomes a catch all for random things.

I don't like this. At all.

However one interesting blessing has come out of the most recent pile of junk.

A lesson in tea brewing.

Let me explain. Sometimes when I know we have company coming over I'll off pile the stash of random things to either our room or our guest bedroom, just to clear the table. And then when I can get to the randomness, I'll organize it and get rid of things, like old coupons that have piled up.

Anyhoo...I've had a little pile of things on our floor in our room that have been needing to be gone thru. Among the treasures (or the lack thereof) have been two single tea strainers. They were removed from our kitchen drawers a few months ago while I've been toying with getting rid of them or garage sale them. Simply because they don't seem to hold loose leaf tea very well.

Of course having a toddler, not much goes untouched around here. I have up telling her not to touch them because I was worried her fingers would be pinched in them. She just liked playing like she was making tea.

"Mama, makin' da tea?" she would say.

Today I decided to make the most of the strainers and I told her I wanted to teach her how to make big girl tea with the tea strainers.

So we made tea.

When I went to go look thru my loose leaf collection, I realized I only had one tea that was decaffeinated: Lavender Lemon Mint Tea, a find from our local farmers market.

 Then I spread out some of the tea on a white paper plate for Addy to see the colors and all three parts of the tea. 

 I filled the kettle and let it boil. I explained that the hotter the water gets, it begins to boil and produce steam. I showed Addy the steam and we listened to it boil. 

 Then I had her wash the tea strainers. But because my kitchen sink looked like a volcano erupted as a result of breakfast, I decided to move her wash station to the floor. I added some warm soapy water for her to wash the strainers by herself. I rinsed them after she was done. 

 Then we talked about what our tea was made of: 

Lavender

Lemon 

Mint

I had her identify and touch all three and even smell them. 

And we also identified their colors: 

Lavender: Purple

Lemon: Yellow

Mint: Green

 And she smelled them. I love her squishy nose smell face. 

 Then I opened the strainer and had her fill it as much as she could. 

 Then I told her we were going to use a big girl tea cup and saucer but that she had to be really careful with it and keep her hands in her lap unless mommy said she could touch it. She did really good. 

 Ready for our hot water! 

 Here it comes! She loved the steam! "Hot, Mama." 

 Steam face...

 It started out very dull in color. Which I knew it would, because it's an herbal tea. 

 She gently stirred it around. "Cling, Cling." 

 "Look, Mama." She noticed the little specs of tea (the reason I wanted to do away with the little strainers!)

 Then we squeezed in some honey! 

 "Wanna taste the honey, Addy?" "No!" 

 I led by example and tried it first. "Mmmmmm, yummy." 

 Then we let it steep and she wanted a snack, an orange. Which we had to add a slice of to our tea. "Mmmm yummy." And we waited. 

I wanted her to try the tea, but so far she hasn't wanted to. Rascal. But the experience of making tea was super fun and hilarious. All of this after a weekend of her being tummy sick and in the midst of a cranky day. But I'm happy for the experience!