My very first tisane faite à la maison

Passed by a medical shop around my neighborhood yesterday and decided to check out the place. What’s there to check out for? No hunks or babes. Just piles and piles of medical products. I’m always intrigued by the amazing health benefits that TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) can offer to mortals like us. With an unexplainable burning desire, I decided to try my hands on brewing chrysanthemum herbal tea ( 'ju hua cha'). It shouldn’t be that difficult, all one needs is just some cow sense. My mum always makes herbal tea but I never try watching the process. If my mum can do it, so can I. If Yan can cook, so can you. I’m trying hard to be humorous here, so please PRETEND to be amused. Alrighty, back to my herbal-brewing adventure, I bought the cheapest pack of chrysanthemums (dried ones, of course and not those fresh ones which some use for offerings) & a pack of brownish yellow type of rock sugar(remember, rock sugar & not caster/ granulated/ brown/ fine/ icing sugar). Now, everyone pls repeat after me, 'Rock Sugar'. Good. There’re supposedly 2 types of rock sugars; white and brownish yellow but the lady at the medical shop told me that the latter is better as it makes the herbal thingy more fragrant. She couldn’t be wrong since she worked there, so I swapped my white rock sugar for the other type. Total price paid: S$3.00/-

Elated with my purchase, I headed home immediately. Found a large pot, filled it with water for about 3 quarters full with consideration of the amount of space that the herbal stuff will take up in the pot too. Minutes passed and the water was boiling! Woohoo!! I opened the chrysanthemum pack and dumped the whole pack in. But wait a minute, it brought to my attention that I shouldn’t have utilized the whole pack. The flowers doubled in size and seemed like they absorbed all the water in the pot!! I believe I inherited my mum’s good genes that I can ratify the situation. I scooped up some of the chrysanthemums out from the pot into a bowl. Voila! Everything was under control again. Next, I put in some of the rock sugar. Please use your own discretion on how much sugar to use. I didn’t want it to be very sweet or too bitter. Once the sugar melted, the herbal tea is more or less ready. One last step: use a sieve to separate the chrysanthemums from the tea. This is an idiot-proof recipe. Good to brew herbal beverages occasionally for consumption to cool our body down and to prevent getting sick easily since we’re experiencing haze now.