For as long as I can remember, when I felt under the weather, my go to remedy was a cup of hot tea with a splash of lemon and honey. It’s widely know that a lemon and honey combo is great for cutting congestion and soothing the throat. If you are on the go and need a cuppa to help relieve your cold, flu, sore throat and allergy symptoms, try these homemade throat drops.
You can use any tea for this recipe. I prefer to drink black tea for taste but any tea made from the Camellia sinensis plant is full of antioxidants. In this recipe, I used a sweet cinnamon Chai.
Ingredients
- loose leaf tea or bags (of any flavor)
- lemon
- 1/2 cup raw honey – This Eco Bee Farms Raw Honey is the best
- 1 cup of hot water
Brew the tea in one cup of hot water. Let it steep for 3-5 minutes. You’ll want to brew a strong cup of tea. Strain the tea (if using loose leaf) and pour it into a small saucepan.
Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon.
Add the raw honey to the brewed tea.
Turn on the burner and bring the mixture to a rapid boil. The mixture needs to boil until it reaches the hard crack stage (300 F). If you do not have a candy thermometer, you can use the cold water trick revealed below.
As the mixture reduces in volume and it becomes thick and syrupy, you can test if it has reached the hard crack stage by dropping a bit of the mixture into a bowl of ice water.
If the mixture solidifies, it’s ready.
Drop spoonfuls on to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Let it cool and harden.
Place each hardened throat drop in between two pieces of parchment paper for storage. If you find that your drops didn’t get quite to the hard crack stage and are a bit soft, no worries. Keep the drops in the refrigerator until needed.
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