Another Ginger Tea

Another Ginger Tea

Still reeling from my crushing disappointment over the Portlandfood carts, I was pacing around in my backyard, thinking I needed a cup of good ginger tea.  The Portland food cart ginger tea advertised in the tourist brochure had captured my attention, so I hunted for the particular truck that I had read about.  The brochure promised me fresh ginger, lemon and Punjabi shakar (raw cane sugar).  

As soon as it neared my nose I knew something funny was up.  The strong aroma of inexpensive factory produced gingersnaps swatted my nose.  One sip of the viscous fluid and I knew a great deal of corn syrup was involved, along with synthetic ginger and synthetic lemon.  While the synthetic ginger tastes kind of interesting (I confess to adoring cheap gingersnaps) it didn’t exactly taste like ginger.  Nor did it feel healthy.  But it did pack a wallop, so I was thinking I wouldn’t mind a bit more wallop in my usual gingertea.  This morning  when I saw that I had very little fresh ginger left, I knew I really had to compensate!

ancient but precious

1 inch fresh ginger
1 saucepan cold water
1 slice fresh lemon per cup
1 teaspoon shakar per cup

I used my ancient grater, purchased from an old lady’s garage sale thirty years ago, to get a fairly fine ginger shred.  I put that into a non-stick sauce pan and turned on the heat.  I thought if roasting spices brings out the flavour, why not try that for ginger.

As the ginger became more aromatic, and slightly golden, I filled the pan with cold water, and set it to boil for about ten minutes.  Because the ginger was shredded into such tiny pieces, I strained it.  (Although I do like ginger well enough that I wouldn’t have minded using my teeth as the straining device.)  I squeezed a slice of lemon into the cup, a spoonful of shakar, no corn syrup, thank you very much, and I was done.

Pungent, refreshing, tasting super clean, this real ginger tea will delight your senses.  If you have a garden or patio, drink it out there.

my shady sitting area