Sunday, February 20, 2005

catnip tea

After the cats celebrated Mardi Gras, I had quite a few questions about the merits of catnip tea. I'll have to admit, I had never made catnip tea for my cats current group of cats. I did make it many, many years ago using fresh-picked catnip. I had actually made the tea for myself, since it calms the stomach for humans, which makes sense since it's in the mint family. Anyway, I thought it tasted pretty awful, so I let it cool and gave it to the cats. They sniffed it and walked away.

This morning, I decided to make some catnip tea for Noah, McCullough, and Eep, since they had only managed to give up catnip for 1 day for Lent. I put some of the dried herb in one of my tea balls, and let it steep for about 5 minutes, then poured it into a chilled bowl for them. Then I garnished with some dried catnip on top. McCullough sniffed the tea and acted like she was maybe going to drink it, then walked away. Noah was interested in it, and sniffed it for about a minute, then took a cautious taste of it. That was it, just a taste. Eep never even sniffed the bowl.

While I was out today, I left the bowl sitting out for the cats to get to. I think they drank a little of it, and I'm guessing it was Noah. Of course, he's the cat that likes cold, unsweetened coffee with milk, and unsweetened iced tea.

Anyone else tried making catnip tea? For humans or cats? Results?

Hmm...if you're making it to settle your stomach, maybe add some honey and lemon to flavor it some more. Just a thought.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

yea, I have made catnip tea, I generally mix it with other teas in my tea ball, but it helps a lot with calming my stomach when its upset. I have crohns disease, and the catnip, along with hops, and some other herbs make a pretty good tea to drink when I'm flaring up. your right though, it does taste kinda nasty without any flavoring.

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