First Harvest is a time of year when nearly everything is ripe and ready for harvest. It is a time of year when grass and grains are coming into their own. This immediately takes my mind to golden meadows and droopy wildflowers swaying in the sun. We live in a pretty urban area, but there is a park nearby with a big open meadow and the kids love to run through it with butterfly nets swooping wildly and collapsing into fits of giggles. It’s such a late summer experience and consequently, such a late summer drink. August here is hot and muggy. I love my tea, and so do the kids, but I just can’t in August. Instead we make sun tea, iced tea, tea lattes and tea sodas. This is an herbal tea soda– basically a strong herbal iced tea mixed with seltzer, for a seasonally appropriate and refreshing drink. I knew I wanted to use hay for this tea, its essentially what meadows are, and ever since I used it for an amazing panna cotta in the Botanical Anthology, I have been looking for more things to make with it. It’s amazing in this soda– it tastes like sun and meadows and summer. The whole drink does really, perfect for a lazy summer day and kid approved. I love that visiting a meadow and collecting the flowers is a visceral part of the experience, but have included a work around below if that isn’t in the cards for you.
Wildflower Meadow Soda
You, much like my husband, may be wondering why I am telling you roast grass. I know it sounds a little out there but toasted hay smells and tastes amazing. It is is actually a very traditional British flavoring. It takes on a vanilla type of scent with just a few minutes in the oven and is the epitome of late summer. It’s important to use organic hay intended to consumption. You can buy fairly small quantities intended for rabbits online rather than huge bales of it for a farm animals. Hay and straw are not the same thing- make sure you use hay. The flowers are all things I had access to that are meadow plants, you can substitute any edible flower you have access to. Make sure anything you harvest is unsprayed. I also used hops because they are at there best this time of year and were calling to me even though they aren’t exactly a meadow flower. If you want to cut out the gathering of the flowers and/or the roasting of the grass you can substitute a ready made tea for the first four ingredients. (There are even a few commercial teas that are called “meadow.”)
Ingredients:
- A handful of hay (organic and intended for consumption)
- Meadow flowers (I used meadowseet, goldenrod, yarrow, agastache, sweet joe pye, & and a little wild mint)
- Dried red clover flowers (unsprayed)
- Hops (optional)
- Local honey
- Seltzer (plain or flavored, I used orange vanilla)
- Ice
- Some of the flowers reserved for garnish (optional)
Method:
First toast the hay. Spread it on a baking sheet and heat in a 350 f oven for 4-5 minutes. It will smell toasty and a little vanilla-ish. Cool.
Next make the tea. In a heat proof bowl or measuring cup, add the toasted hay, red clover flowers, meadow flowers and hops. Pour over boiling water until covered by an inch or so. You’ll want to make the tea quite strong (because you’ll be adding seltzer which waters it down.) Steep for 15-20 minutes and then strain. Add honey to taste while it is still warm. (You can add it later, it will just be harder to mix in once the tea is cool.) Cool completely in the fridge.
Fill a glass about halfway with the cooled tea, add ice, and top up with seltzer. Stir and enjoy!