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Tea Debut: Oasis & Cerise Citron

oasis coffee cherry tea blend

cerise citron coffee cherry tea blend

On Friday in the shop, we stocked the shelves with our two newest blends. Andrea and I were both smitten with coffee cherry tea and quickly envisioned blends that would play off its earthy cherry notes.

Oasis is a delicious combination of coffee cherry tea (cascara) by coffee flour, coconut flakes, elder berries, and indian sarsaparilla. The elder berries add a depth of flavor and round out the bright cherry note. When hot, the steamy scent of the coconut flakes carry you into the tea and lingers on the tongue. The sarsaparilla lends a creamy vanilla quality to the entire mouth feel. It’s a warming cup of tea that take cream and sugar well or stands alone with ease.

Cerise Citron, “lemon cherry” en francais, was inspired by the tart side of the coffee cherry tea. A fresh lemongrass scent is layered with lemon balm and sumac – a surprising citrus flavor. The brewed cup ends with a twist of spices and non-traditional tea botanicals like galangal root and pink peppercorns. Not spicy, just a touch to open all the flavors. We love it iced and cold brewed with nitro on tap.

The first batch of both blends are small lots, but we’ve ordered in ingredients to blend more and have it on the blending schedule for late next week. If we run out, we’ll take back orders with everything shipping on the 20th. First come first serve for the time being. If you are local and aren’t sure when you can make it in and want to reserve some, order online and select local pick up.

And remember, now through Sunday night, Coffee Cherry Tea, Cerise Citron, and Oasis are all on sale, 20% off.

Until next time

August 12, 2018
Experimenting with Coffee Cherry Tea
Since it arrived, everyone in the shop has been dreaming up new ways to use Coffee Cherry Tea. Of course all the usual tea steeping ways. Iced tea with an elder flower syrup is phenomenal and definitely a favorite.

Coffee Cherry Iced Tea
- 7g coffee cherry tea (heaping teaspoon)
- 4oz just boiled water
- Steep 5 minutes
- Strain into mason jar filled with ice and shake
- Pour over ice
- shot of botanical syrup (optional)
Then Jason went and made it into a syrup. Whole. New. World.

At the shop we have an old timey spritzer bottle, so making Italian Sodas and Creamosas was an easy first step.

One of the fun things about Ames is the ISU Surplus Sale — where you can pick up all kinds of old lab equipment. We love using them to measure for our drinks and quantify our blends.

Coffee Cherry Tea Italian Soda (Creamosa)
- 1oz shot Coffee Cherry Tea syrup
- Seltzer Water
- Ice
- Cream on top (optional)
Making the coffee cherry tea into a syrup also lead to a most delicious steamer — milk and syrup steamed together.

Coffee Cherry Tea Steamer
1. 1oz shot of coffee cherry tea simple syrup
2. 8oz milk
3. Put together in pitcher, steam, dash of cardamon powder
And then someone was like – let’s pull shots!

Coffee Cherry Tea Espresso Shot
- 10g coffee cherry tea, tea cut
- Red Espresso restricted flow porta filter
- 30 sec pre-infusion
So now, the entirety of our TeaEspresso menu that we developed with RedEspresso and yerba mate can be used with Coffee Cherry Tea. I over packed the porta filter, but still had good results. It’s more flexible than white espresso or rooibos. It bulks A LOT. One of the things that’s easy to forget about Coffee Cherry Tea is how fibrous it is.

Coffee Cherry Tea Latte
- 2oz shot coffee cherry teaspresso
- 6oz whole milk, steamed
- shot simple syrup (cardamom is pretty delish)
- dash apple pie spice on top
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Tg8ew0eB0]

At Little Woods we do a lot of careful development of our menu… but sometimes inspiration strikes I drop something on the menu and get super lucky and it works out great… Thus the Tea Spritzer. I had fresh lemon balm from the garden. A new ol’ timey Water Seltzer bottle and we were debuting our new Tea Espresso menu. I wanted to put them all together. Thus the Tea Spritzer is born.

Coffee Cherry Tea Spritzer
1. A shot of Elder Flower Syrup.
2. A Double Shot of Rooibos or coffee cherry tea.
3. Shaken with ice.
4. Seltzer water.
5. Sprig of fresh aromatics like lemon balm or chocolate mint…. holy basil is also great.
Coffee Cherry Tea (tea cut) we use in our espresso machine

Rooibos we use in our espresso machine

Elder flowers we made our simple syrup with

Last week Andrea was a guest teacher at Cook’s Emporium and co-taught a class on simple syrups. During the prep for the class we took a ton of photos of how we make our simple syrup for Little Woods, so we’ll be sharing the recipe for that here on the blog soon.

Up next, our blends! Andrea knocked it out of the park with Oasis, debuting in our brick and mortar this afternoon.

Until Next Time.
August 10, 2018
Brewing: Coffee Cherry Tea (aka Cascara)

This is some exciting news. We’ve partnered with Coffee Flour™ to bring their new Coffee Cherry Tea to the US online retail market place. In addition to selling Coffee Cherry Tea online, we are developing a new line of herbal tea blends featuring this unique ingredient. Our first two are debuting this Friday.

We’ve decided to show you everything we’ve learned about Coffee Cherry Tea this week. How to brew it, what it is, why it’s awesome. And of course, have a sale. Coffee Cherry Tea is 20% off now through the weekend.

So first things first. What is it?

Coffee Cherry Tea is tea cut cascara, the fruit and skin of the coffee cherry, but no bean. Unlike all the other cascara we’ve sampled (thanks to our neighbor Morning Bell Coffee Roaster), Coffee Cherry Tea is handled with care during the entire process. No funk. No mold. No, ummm, floor sweepings. Completely food safe. It’s bright and tart. Notes of cherry. A touch of coffee on the finish. It’s flavor straddles coffee and a rooibos with a touch of hibiscus. There’s a little caffeine, less than roasted coffee by the brewed cup.

Brewing Coffee Cherry Tea

Immediately we started experimenting with it. We found it does better brewed like tea than coffee. Thursday we’ll be showing you all our experiments – like pulling shots, pour over, aeropress brewing, and making it into simple syrups.

We wanted to figure out the best steeping ratio, tea:water:heat:time. We sampled it around to a few regulars and our staff. It was a fun impromptu tasting and we captured the final round for the timing.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghjINbqLK4k?rel=0]

For at home, we found the french press is best… but we always say that. It’s our favorite type of brewing vessel! Completely bias.

In a french press: 8-9g for a 12oz french press = 1 heaping Tablespoon

In a tea ball: 5-6g (1 heaping teaspoon) for a 8-10oz mug

In a tea pot: 1 heaping teaspoon per person and 1 for the pot

Steep Time: 4-6 minutes

Water Temperature: 205 – 212F

It holds up to cream well and is divine with a little honey.

Up next, why we love it — other than just it’s flavor — a sneak peek into the ethics behind this new brew!

Until Next Time

August 7, 2018
Wildcrafting: Elder Flowers

Historical lore abounds in regards to the lovely elder tree. Plentiful across Iowa both wild and cultivated it’s been featured in fairy tales, magic making, and herbal remedies going back to the stone age. Sweetly scented and pleasant with honey, it’s considered an herbal ally for children and adults alike. Elder flowers make a delicious country wine, champagne (yum!) or mead style brew, while I’ve usually made elder berries into a cordial (honey and brandy infusion). An elder flower simple syrup is a delicious addition to spritzers, cocktails, and teaspresso (or coffee espresso) drinks. And is our featured homestyle syrup this week.

Of no gardening prowess of my own, I have a lovely little grove of Elders growing in my backyard… aka the “Little Woods” and the space in my life to which our shop owes its name. They are perfectly in season this week and on the cusp of making that transition into elder berries.

Elder berries are something I’ve never been able to successfully harvest. Their ideal ripe time is fleeting and I always seem to catch them right before the lovely cluster droops, or shortly after the birds and raccoons strip them.

So this year, I decided not to try and capture the berries, but instead harvested about 50% of the elder flowers and assumed the rest will be for the wildlife and maybe just maybe me too.

An interesting thing about our lovely herbal ally the Elder, it’s considered toxic. All the roots, bark, twigs and even the uncooked berries, green berries will give you a nice dose of throwing up and then some. Don’t eat the twigs. That being the case, before drying, I removed the smaller flower clusters from the larger stems.

I used my dehydrator to dry them as it’s pretty humid in Iowa right now. It took about 8 hours at 90°F.

After then hand plucking the tiny dried flowers from the remaining twigs, I was left with yet another little pile of twigs.

I’ve already used the dried flowers quite often in teas for myself and Lucy and happily have a little jar tucked into the cupboard to pull out and use this winter. One of my favorite things about preserving my harvest is with each jar in my pantry there are memories of summer. I pull out those jars to make a tea and am immediately standing in the sun, dewy sweat across my brow and dirt under my nails from weeding.

Elder flowers are this week’s feature in the Little Woods shop. In addition to today’s post about harvesting and preserving them, I’ll be posting a recipe for making an elder flower simple syrup this weekend. If you’ve already missed the harvest where you are, or you don’t have a nice shrub growing near by, you can get them dried and ready to use for 10% off their usual price now thru Sunday in our online store or our apothecary on Main street in Ames, Iowa.

August 2, 2018
Recipe: Holy Basil Pesto
For book club this month I read Adaptogens: Herbs for Strength, Stamina, and Stress Relief by David Winston and Steven Maimes, which was a pretty interested read. According to the authors, the three things that are key in an herb being considered an “adaptogen” is that it is 1) Tonic – can be taken daily long term without causing harm, 2) Have a non-specific response in the body, and 3) have a normalizing influence. Read… things that can be incorporated into your diet because they are generally considered food – like astragalus in soup and holy basil in… everything!

It’s mainly re-affirmed my love affair with Holy Basil, which is growing in a large leafy bush in my garden this summer.

Last month we decided we would continue our potluck style book club so I headed to the garden and harvested a bunch of holy basil to try my hand at making it into a pesto. I read as many blog posts and recipes on the topic as I could find, weirdly only about four… maybe my search terms were off.

As usual, I then tossed out the recipes and made up my own, because as Jason tells me it’s fairly against my nature to follow a recipe. It turned out pretty delicious and everyone’s eyes lit up when I said I had brought enough to share with book club goers and staff alike.

Holy Basil (Tulsi) Pesto
- 1 tightly packed cup of fresh holy basil
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh ginger
- 1/4 cup almonds (soaked for 20 mins or so, water discarded)
- Juice of 1 lime
- 1″ block parmesan cheese
- 2 cloves garlic or 1/2t. granulated garlic
- Salt (alder smoked) to taste
- Black cracked Pepper to taste
I used an immersion blender to puree everything, but a food processor or blender would work just as well.

Toss with pasta and enjoy!

Want to join us for book club next month? We are reading Midwest Medicinal Plants by Lisa M. Rose (available in our shop) and will meet up at the shop Thursday, August 16 from 12-1pm. See our book club facebook event for all the details and to rsvp.
July 20, 2018
DIY garlic oil
Today I wanted to show you one of my favorite things to do with fresh garlic. As we head into the heart of summer and garlic will soon be showing up at the farmer’s market – those nice soft neck fresh bulbs – it seemed a good time. Garlic oil is a lovely thing to keep around the kitchen and in the home apothecary cabinet.

The best part, it’s easy. The main thing to remember is to not saute it. Low temp. Really low.

The full recipe is at the bottom for ease of reading.

Measure the oil.

Chop. Chop. Chop.

Warm it up.

Filter it.

Wait for it.

Squeeeeeze.

And that’s it. Here’s all the details.

Stove Top Garlic Oil

Ingredients & Materials
- 4 cloves garlic
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- coffee filter
- mason jar OR brown bottle and a funnel
- sauce pan
- chop board and knife
Directions
1. Make sure all your equipment is clean and sterile.
2. Chop up the garlic.
3. Warm up the oil, keep it well away from browning.
4. Cover and let it sweat for a good 20 minutes — keep that temp as low as possible.
5. Place the coffee filter in the mason jar and strain the oil through it. It will take awhile for the oil to make it’s way through. Wash your hands thoroughly or wear gloves and then squeeze out any oil you can, making sure not to burst the filter.
6. Discard the filter, you can save the garlic chunks and mix it into dinner if you want. Just don’t put it in the compost pile – oil is no good for compost.
7. Lid and Label your jar with the date and what’s in it. Store it in the fridge for up to 4 days OR freeze it for up to several months.
Think you want to store your garlic oil on the counter or in the fridge is “fine forever”… think again (I know I sure did). Here’s what the University of California says about garlic oil preparations. Yikes.

So that my friends is the super easy way to make garlic oil for your culinary and apothecary needs. Just make sure to let it cool before it’s in contact with your skin. aka Don’t burn yourself.

Until next time,

Kristin M Roach
June 29, 2018
Book review: The Ayurveda Way

Each month at the Little Woods’ shop we host an herbal book club (every 3rd Thursday from noon – 1pm except holidays). We selected this book a few months back for summer knowing our lives would be full of travel and outdoor time. It’s digest format was perfect.

She starts with her own story, her path of how she came to yoga, Ayurveda, and Vedanta – mindfulness of body, mind and spirit – and the transformative effects it had on her physical, mental, and spiritual well being.

Ayurveda belongs wherever there is suffering because Ayurveda ignites a lamp in every heart, without being expensive, without depleting nature, and without making the body an arsenal of harsh chemicals. — Ananta Ripa Ajmera

There are 108 practices to introduce and inspire a more mindful and healthy lifestyle. Throughout the book, we all found value in different aspects of this longstanding tradition. The author mentions it dates back to more than 5,000 years ago and may have been a catalyst for traditional chinese medicine modalities.

Each of us were inspired by different aspects of the book and different aspects of Ayurveda. One of the book club members said she found the act of gazing at her hands in the morning a truly inspiring way to start the day.

And we all enjoyed the recipes. This month we tried something different for book club and instead of sack lunches, we all brought a recipe from or inspired by the book. It was a feast of amazing healthy foods.

Food plays a key roll in the daily practice of Ayurveda as preventative medicine. There are of course more “medicine” aspects of Ayurveda, but I have found personally, for me, the philosophies of mindfulness and eating/cooking are the most applicable to my herbalist path. In the book there is a small section about it to introduce you to it. If it’s something you would like to pursue further, you can go to Joyful Belly to take a Dosha Quiz and find recipes and food recommendations to eat based on your constitution.

We had a few reports from those who had tried it and actually did a meal plan/diet based on the recommendations. Many of the issues they had been having lessened rather quickly though their dietary changes. For myself, I can report that looking over the recommendation lists for my type (Pitta, no surprise there), several of the “avoid” things were foods I have eliminated from my diet because they tend to make me feel pretty ill.

I would recommend this book for someone interested in Ayurveda who wants to incorporate some of the daily mindfulness practices, but isn’t sure where to start. It would also make a great gift for a friend who could use a little self love.

You can buy it in our physical shop or our online store.

Want to join us for book club next month? We are reading Adaptogens: Herbs for Strength, Stamina, and Stress Relief by David Winston and Steven Maimes. See our facebook event for all the details and to rsvp.

June 22, 2018
Welcome to Little Woods Herbal

I love teaching people about plants that grow on the edges. They remind us that life often thrives after disruption — Rosemary Gladstar

Little Woods has grown and changed and sped up and slowed down these last 5 years. I have an amazing team working with me every day and happily, our next phase is getting back to one of the things I’ve missed the most while getting the store off to a good start — writing about herbalism and natural living.

I have a whole slew of things planned and I want to jump back in. But, I’m not going to do that. Instead I’m going to start slow. Each Friday I’ll be adding a new blog post about making herbal preparations, new products in the shop, the teaching garden we are planting, shop news like upcoming classes and events, and tea topics (of course!).

So, I’ll see you on Friday!

Kristin M Roach

June 18, 2018