Sleepy Time City Park Tea

City Park Tea

It is July and all of the Linden trees are dense with little yellow fragrant flowers. Apparently in some parts of the world, possibly long long time ago, these little flowers were coveted. My grandma told my mom, who told me, that back in Germany people would get contracts for Linden trees on municipal land. The contract would grant the individual sole rights to the flowers in the summer. But that is now third hand knowledge, so do what you want with it. I read on the very reliable internet, which would never mislead you, that linden flowers made you sleepy. But before we get into that,  lets dive into the very complicated harvesting play-by-play. 

Harvesting Linden Flowers:

Linden Tree in Bloom

In this beautiful picture that is totally ruined by the garbage can, is a Linden tree. This tree is on the Queen's University campus, where I spend my days asking myself why I chose to go to grad school. Well, on my way by this tree I snagged a branch full of flowers. 

I didn't even charge for the free pruning. I picked off the leaves and left on the flowers. The flowers are attached to what looks like lime colored leaves. Up close they look a little like half of a Maple key.  I also picked a bunch of flowers in City Park, hence the name of my new tea. In about 24 hours the flowers where completely dry.

The Making of the Tea:

Dried Linden flowers

Once the flowers were dried, I snapped them off and plopped them in a mason jar to make tea.

Dried flowers for mediocre tasting tea

Well, the tea was not awesome. So I dropped in a little black tea too. This improved the experience dramatically. The flowers blossom in the hot water and look gorgeous in the glass jar. If you are making this at home, note that mugs may be exchanges for jars. The tea did in fact make me sleepy. I need to try it a few more times, but at this point I would recommend it for before bed to help make you drowsy. 

Hot water and dried Linden flowers