I guess you can imagine how happy I was when this arrived at my table the other day… mint tea made from actual mint leaves! Served in a real cup, with a side snack of Fair Trade chocolate with recyclable packaging.
Well, even better this was my friends cup while I was enjoying a fresh beer :-p!
Time to change that habit?
It did make me think of all the things we do because they are a habit. Every day I drink a peppermint tea or two, tea bags from Lidl. The packaging is cardboard, and there’s no plastic in the tea bags… but still! It’s a product that has production and travel costs to the earth, and it’s not organic so insects would have been harmed in the making of that tea.*
Using what you have
All this time I’ve actually had a couple of sad mint plants in a pot in my garden. They are ridiculously easy to keep (trust me, by all rights these should be dead by now). I could harvest and freeze a wad of leaves. Instead of grabbing a tea bag I could grab a few leaves from the freezer, pop them in a cup, add hot water et voila! A fresh and lovely cup of mint tea.
And why stop there?
Homemade Ginger Tea
Ginger is a great product which you can buy plastic free, keeps for ages. Simply cut a couple of slices, put in boiling water and there’s a delicious and fresh cup of ginger tea too.
Step 1 – Cut the Ginger 
Step 2 – Add hot water
You can take your fancy plastic
- CHEAP
- FRESH
- DELICIOUS
- CONVENIENT
- LOW ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Just think…. what other habits do we have which aren’t actually as nice as the green alternative?
Further Reading
*Why we need to care for our insects – what does their demise mean for us?
