I’ve been meaning to share my recipe for fresh lemongrass tea for a while now, and finally had a moment to photograph my tea yesterday. It’s been a busy week and yesterday I had a lot of work to do at home so having lots of hot lemongrass tea at hand really supported me, especially when I had a few anxious moments about work. This is a really soothing infusion and great at any time of day; with breakfast, tea or after dinner.
I really got into lemongrass tea during my trip to Vietnam in March. In the hotel where I was staying, they made fresh lemongrass tea everyday and I got hooked. Its got a beautiful lemony sweet flavour and I can drink so much of it without feeling heavy! I saw that they used loads of lemongrass stalks in each pot and chopped it quite small, so when I got back to London I gave it a go. I have found that the perfect ratio of lemongrass to water is 1 chopped stalk to 1 cup (250ml) water and the key is to leave it to infuse for at least half an hour to really bring out the sweetness. You can even leave it for hours and it still tastes great. I normally make a big flask of it (1.5l) so it lasts me the whole day, but for the sake of the blog, I photographed it in my favourite tea pot from Marimekko.
I also included some of the photos I snapped during my visit to Vietnam. I love photography and there were so many beautiful and intriguing colours, scenes and people to photograph in the town of Hoi An; this is an edit of my favourites. After the first three photos of tea, the photos of Vietnam are of:
- A small boat by water.
- A lady in town selling trinkets – I loved her scarf/bamboo hat combo!
- Tropical fruits in the market.
- Signs on a side street – with what I presume is a spelling mistake!
- Banana flower and chicken salad.
- Flower pots hanging from a roof in town.
Fresh Lemongrass tea – Caffeine free
1 lemongrass stalk : 1 cup of water
- For 2 cups – 2 lemongrass + 500ml water
- For 4 cups – 4 lemongrass + 1l water etc.
- Wash the lemongrass stalks and using a sharp knife chop the stalk horizontally into small rounds, roughly between 2mm and 10mm. Place in a tea pot, cup or flask.
- Boil the correct amount of water then pour into the pot/cup/flask, cover and leave to infuse for at least 1/2 hour. Don’t worry about removing the lemongrass, you can leave it to infuse for up to several hours, it will just get darker and sweeter.
With Love, Spice and Smile,
Thaïs
Spice & Smile 
Hi Thais, this is great. It really made me chuckle just to read this. :0)
SO GOOD. Lemongrass tea is one of my favourites and according to my mum, cures all! Had the pleasure of visiting Vietnam earlier this year too and i love the place. Such a rich vibrant culture,wonderful people, and amazing food of course! Great pictures. x
This is such a lovely blog post, I love lemongrass tea, and at the moment (it’s summertime here) I make a pot when I arrive at work, and drink it through out the morning. Delicious!
I love this tea and I love Marimekko! And Vietnam.