My journal entry from last Tuesday just says ‘throat, low, foggy’ with three ticks underneath it, one for each cup of honey and lemon tea I made myself before lunch. Nothing dramatic happened that week. It was just one of those stretches where everything feels a half-step slower than usual, and a warm drink in your hands does more for you than another coffee ever will.
I’ve been making some version of this tea for years, long before I started writing about food for a living. It’s the drink I reach for without really deciding to, the way some people reach for toast. What’s changed over time isn’t the idea of it so much as the ratio, and a few small habits around how I make it that I only worked out by getting it wrong a fair few times first.
A cup I reach for without overthinking it
There’s a honey stall at the Kincumber growers market run by a bloke named Col, who’s kept bees on the Central Coast for over twenty years. I buy a jar most months, not because I think it does anything magic, but because the flavour changes with the season and that keeps the whole ritual interesting. Some months it’s almost citrus-sweet. Other months it’s darker, with a bit of a mineral edge. Either way, a spoon of it stirred into hot water with lemon is the closest thing I have to a full stop at the end of a long morning.
The tea itself is unfussy. That’s most of the point. You’re not trying to build a complicated drink here, you’re trying to build five minutes where you’re not doing three things at once.
Why I don’t call this a remedy
I want to be upfront about something, because I see this drink talked up a lot online as though it fixes things. It doesn’t cure anything and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. What I’ve noticed is simpler and, honestly, a bit more useful than a miracle claim: a warm honey and lemon drink is soothing to sip slowly, it’s hydrating, and it gives you a reason to sit down for a minute instead of ploughing on. That’s the whole job it does, and for me that’s plenty.
If you want the general, sensible guidance on staying hydrated and looking after yourself when you’re feeling a bit off, healthdirect.gov.au has a good rundown that doesn’t overpromise. And if you’re curious about honey specifically, nutritionaustralia.org has clear information on where it sits alongside other added sugars, which is worth a look if you’re the sort of person who has three cups of this a day like I sometimes do.
Ingredients
- 500ml filtered water
- 1 lemon, preferably thin-skinned, unwaxed if you can get it
- 2 tablespoons raw honey (a local, unheated one if you have access)
- 2-3 thin slices fresh ginger (optional, but I nearly always add it)
- A small sprig of fresh mint or a few thyme leaves (optional)
- A pinch of ground cinnamon, to finish (optional)
Method
- Bring the water to a gentle simmer in a small saucepan, not a rolling boil. You want it hot enough to draw flavour, not so hot it scalds the honey later.
- If using ginger, add the slices to the water and let them simmer gently for 3-4 minutes so the flavour has time to come through.
- Slice the lemon thinly, keeping the peel on, and add half the slices to the pan for the last minute of simmering.
- Turn off the heat and let the mixture sit for a minute or two off the flame. This matters more than it sounds like it should. Honey stirred into water that’s just off the boil keeps more of its flavour and colour than honey dumped into a rolling boil.
- Pour into two mugs, dividing the remaining fresh lemon slices between them.
- Stir a tablespoon of honey into each mug, tasting and adjusting as you go, since honeys vary a lot in sweetness depending on the season and the flowers the bees were working.
- Finish with a sprig of mint or a pinch of cinnamon if you like, and drink while it’s still properly warm.
Makes 2 cups.
How I actually drink this
Most mornings this happens after I’ve been in the water, not before. I’ll do a swim, come home cold to the bone even in the warmer months, and this is what goes on while I’m getting dressed. By the time I’m sitting down it’s cooled to a drinkable temperature and I’ve usually got five minutes to just sit with it before the day properly starts.
On slower weekend mornings I’ll have it alongside something like the savoury oats with mushrooms and a soft egg, which is a good contrast, something warm and gentle next to something warm and savoury. If it’s an evening version I’m after, I’ll usually reach for golden milk with cinnamon instead, since that one’s built more for winding down than starting up.
A version with more warmth in it
When the weather really turns, I lean harder into the ginger and add a small piece of turmeric too, roughly a centimetre, sliced thin and simmered along with the rest. It changes the colour to a soft amber and gives the whole thing more depth. If that sounds like your kind of drink, it’s basically a lighter cousin of the turmeric and ginger wellness tea I’ve written about before, just built around lemon and honey rather than being the main event itself.
I’ll also sometimes swap the mint for a small sprig of lemon myrtle if I’ve got it, which grows reasonably well in pots up here on the Central Coast and gives a sharper, more fragrant edge than regular mint.
The one opinion I’ll hold onto here
Bottled lemon juice ruins this drink, and I don’t think that’s an overstatement. It’s flatter, sometimes a bit metallic, and it skips the part where the peel actually contributes something to the cup. A fresh lemon costs about a dollar. There’s no version of being time-poor that justifies the bottled stuff here, not for a drink this simple. That’s about as strong an opinion as I’ll offer on a cup of tea, but I stand by it.
If you’re building out a broader routine around food that settles you rather than one dramatic fix, it’s worth reading through how a steady gut health routine settles your head too, which covers a lot of the thinking behind why I favour small, repeatable habits like this one over anything more elaborate. And if mornings are the sticking point generally, setting up a pantry for healthier weeknights is a decent place to start, since half of feeling settled is just not having to think too hard before 7am.
Anyway. The kettle’s already on again as I write this, which tells you roughly how often I actually follow my own advice here.
– Tanya Pryce, Golden Door Living
