Ellie’s Medicine Ball Copycat
- 1 tablespoon black tea leaves or 1 bag of black tea
- 1 tablespoon green tea leaves or 1 bag of green tea
- 1 teaspoon chamomile flowers
- 1 teaspoon arnica flowers
- 1 teaspoon mint leaves
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 8-10 ounces boiling water (I eyeballed it while sick, so this is an estimate)
- Start boiling some water.
- Get yourself a mug, the choicest of vessels for teas.
- Pour the honey and lemon juice into the mug.
- If you’re using tea bags, put them in the mug as usual. Combine everything else in a tea infuser and place it in the mug. Personally, I use a Finum reusable mesh basket big enough to store everything. But if you boil your tea ingredients in a kettle and then strain them into a mug, go ahead and do that. However you prepare your tea is fine. I don’t tea-shame.
- Once the water has come to a boil, pour the water into the mug and let everything steep for 3-5 minutes.
- Try to enjoy the odd combination of flavors if you can taste anything at all.
This year hasn’t been kind to my health. Aside from the usual sleep deprivation and stress, I found myself sick twice. (Only twice, knock on wood… I think the bed frame is real wood… *knock knock*)
The dreaded summer cold got me. I spent two days in agony. Fortunately, it was the “my sinuses are going to explode” type of cold, which, surprisingly, I can tolerate better than the “my throat is being ravaged by fire and I want to die” type of cold. When my throat hurts, I transform from a capable grown woman to a whiny, bedridden terror. (Tcch. I wish I were a real terror. I’ve been described as “pathetically adorable.”)
In an effort to feel better sooner, I started the all too fruitless internet search of “how to feel better faster during a cold.” Ideas popped up, words in the search bar changed, and soon I was on the hunt for cold-busting teas. I can’t remember the exact phrase I used, but one of the results sang the praises of a Starbucks “secret menu” item. It was a wholesome combination of “Jade Citrus Mint Green Tea, Peach Tranquility Herbal Tea, hot water, steamed lemonade, and a touch of honey.” It became so popular among the customers who created it that the company officially adopted it and renamed it the Honey Citrus Mint Tea.
Like a doof, I didn’t save the URL of the original page where I first found the recipe, but you can search for “Starbucks medicine ball” and find all sorts of copycats, praises, and debunkings. At the time, I was desperate for some kind of relief and writing a future Brainpie post never entered my mind. All my focus was on sipping the tongue-scorching beverage and dreaming of future days when the front of my skull didn’t feel like erupting.
After work, I ordered a venti (or as I call it, “the big size”), drank it on the way home, and slithered into my pajamas and curled up under the covers. After I woke up from my nap, I felt marginally better. But I was still sick.
I was sure the tea contributed to my feeling better. But leaving the house just to order another cup was out of the question. Once you get a sick Ellie in pajama pants and a baggy shirt, she isn’t going anywhere until she’s feeling at least seventy-five percent. But I had ingredients, an intense desire to banish this cold, and some cooking capability.
Keep in mind that I was trying to copy the original medicine ball tea with ingredients on hand. If you’re looking at this list and wondering why I “got it wrong,” now you know. And you can get stuffed. Now let me explain the purpose of each ingredient.
Green tea: It was in the original recipe, so why not include it in mine? I suppose all the benefits of green tea with antioxidants and brain-boosting power may also help.
Black tea: This replaced the Peach Tranquility. It also reduced the green tea taste. Some people can drink green tea straight. I’m not one of them. The only black tea I had (upstairs in my snack cubby, since I wasn’t lumbering downstairs to the kitchen for Earl Grey) was the Vanilla Comoro. Plus, this claimed to be caffeine free.
Chamomile flowers: Alleged to boost immunity and promote sleepiness. How it beats out the caffeine-loaded green tea, I don’t know. Maybe it teamed up with the Comoro and pummeled the caffeine into submission. Short of making a bedtime cocktail of NyQuil, melatonin, and very likely expired sleeping pills from my medicine cabinet, the flowers were a better bet.
Arnica flowers: Help with pain and swelling. My husband bought a bag of this and the chamomile from a saddlebag of Mexican cooking herbs in the grocery store. His coworker at the time told him about an old Puerto Rican remedy for pain and sleeplessness, a simple combination of arnica and chamomile brewed in a tea. He’d thought of me when he got these ingredients, but I hadn’t used them until now. It’s worth noting that large doses can be dangerous. I had the idea to use only a teaspoon of the stuff. If you’re not comfortable using this ingredient, you can leave it out.
As an aside, I’m half Puerto Rican and I’ve never heard of this remedy. But my family is from the northwestern part of the island, so it may be a regional thing.
Mint leaves: You can’t go wrong with mint in tea.
Lemon juice: The original medicine ball was really a hot tea mixed with steamed lemonade. I figured I’d keep this part in.
Honey: Anti-inflammatory, soothing something, health boosting whatever… do I need a reason to include this? Honey and tea were practically made for each other.
Boiling water: I guess if you wanted to risk choking, you could ball everything up and stuff it down your maw. The honey would make the leaves stick to your hand, though, so that wouldn’t help at all. (Yes, I’m being fractious)
The lemon stands out from everything else. If you’re wondering, yes, it does taste like a warm lemonade with tea stuff dropped into it. I never found it disgusting, but then, I was so desperate for relief, I probably would have chewed up ghost peppers if it cured my cold.
The chamomile kind of rides along with the lemon, so as soon as the lemon tingles your taste buds, the chamomile is right there to relax them. Some bitterness from the teas makes its presence known, but it’s muted. The mint kind of cowers beneath everything, so it may as well not be included. The honey adds a hint of sweetness, but the soothing properties of this ingredient are a must for sore throats.
Of course, I drank this while sick, so my sense of taste was shot worse than a pellet-riddled quail corpse. It would be worth making a cup now to compare…
The lemon is a bit stronger, and the mint pops out on the occasional sip. For that matter, the bitterness has decreased. Other than those observations, the drink doesn’t taste that much different. This could be a drink I’d enjoy when I need to wind down.
An additional note: I limit my intake to two cups a day. Not because of the arnica, but because when I’m sick, I already have to visit the facilities enough without having fluids in my stomach. It’s just as well, since after two cups, I’m relaxed and ready for a nap.
When I got sick a second time this year, I brewed a few more medicine balls. Unlike the first time when my sinuses were mostly suffering, my throat was bearing the brunt of this new illness. The tea did little for my throat. This was one of those colds where I had to suck on cough drops and switch between drinking hot tea and stabbing my tonsils with ice pops. So the tea didn’t offer euphoric relief, but I was relaxed enough to take a nap… for twenty minutes… because my throat hurt that damn much.
It seems that the medicine ball copycat is more effective for sinuses. Fine by me. It’s some kind of relief when I’m not well, and I’ll take it over absolute suffering. Here’s hoping you too will find some comfort with it. Salud.