Making Chrysanthemum tea

Chrysanthemum tea is probably one of the most common drink available at most Chinese restaurants. It is a light drink enjoyed over long hearty meals or simply over a conversation at tea time.

Preparation of Chrysanthemum tea requires about 45minutes of boiling dried Chrysanthemum flowers, sweetened to taste at the last phase of the boiling.

Also, its great fun to fire up the old school kerosene stove for this purpose. I rarely have any use for the kerosene stove due to the hassle of priming the generator tube, to vaporize kerosene fluid into gas as it leaves the nozzle, for an efficient, controllable burn. Otherwise, if its not hot enough, kerosene will shoot out as a liquid and create a fireball until the generator is finally up to temperature.

It turns out that I used 50ml of kerosene for this task and I find that it is easier to control the flame on this old school kerosene stove than a typical kitchen stove as the burner head is smaller. The flame will easily go off on a bigger kitchen stove if it is turned down too low.

It cost me 35 cents of fuel to make about 5 cups of home made Chrysanthemum tea. I did some math and found that using my home LPG gas will cost me 1/3 the price. Nevertheless, I like the fact that the kerosene stove can reasonably cook up something in the outdoors.