CNY is round the corner and the weather is extremely, extremely hot here in KL. Every afternoon you can see blue crispy skies with no clouds and no winds blowing.With such humid and hot weather, kids tend to get sick easily. I boiled Chrysanthemum tea last Saturday for the family.

Chrysanthemum tea is one for China’s most popular Herbal teas and it is well know for its cooling properties that help to decrease the body heat. For those who are down with fever or sore-throat, it is recommended for them to drink this to cool down the body heat.Chrysanthemum tea is indeed easy to prepare. You can get the ready packed dried chrysanthemum flowers from the medical hall. Some even mixed it with ginseng roots, wolfberries and chinese licorice slices ( kam choe in Cantonese ).

To prepare the tea… boiled 1 litre of water in a pot. Pour in the packet of dried chrysanthemum flowers into the boiling pot of water and let it boil for about 20 minutes. If you prefer it to be sweet, you can add some sugar in it. I enjoyed my chrysanthemum tea chilled. What about you?

Because of the swell on my face, Mom adviced me to boil more herbal tea to drink. Well she said it could be the heatiness in my body that cos the stupid swell on my face. I used to boil herbal tea every weekend but most of the time I am the only on to drink it. The three of them hardly drink it and I don’t know why they don’t like it. Where else when we go out to the kopitiam, they will drink those from there. Really benggong !

Searched through my fridge and found one packet of chrysanthemum tea with the ginseng roots given by my aunt. I used to buy a lot of Chinese herbs from my aunt’s medical hall and most of the time when I buy from her she will give me something for free. Wah, I feel really pai seh whenever she give me something. So when she asked me what I want I would say ‘leong char’ cos it is the cheapest one. Hihihi….  

I love the Chrysanthemum tea so much and it has some ginseng roots in it. If you don’t like it to be bitter, just add some rock sugar in it. You can either drink it hot or chilled it. I love mine chilled. Wow… such a nice herbal drink and too bad the three of them just don’t know how to appreciate it.