Herbal heaven: lovage biscuits and mint tea

This time of year is just herbal heaven. Mint tea - the type where you steep the green leaves in the pot, not the type with black tea included - tastes at its best right now. We have oodles of Moroccan mint. It strays up and down a long border.

Yes, I know this isn't good gardening practice, but equally, all those instructions you read about growing mint in a pot just won't give you enough, if you like drinking the tea as much as I do. A large sprig a day soon creates a forest of stalks.

Now is the time to really enjoy it. Mint starts growing as early as February in this garden but, earlier in the season, the flavour is pleasant but a bit thin, as if the plant hasn't quite geared up to churning out the essential oils that create the taste.

Later in the year, when the leaves are altogether tougher and flowers are on the way, the flavour is coarser and darker. But right now, it sings - green, freshly minty, filling the mouth with summer.

But mint isn't the only herb to sing at the moment. The lovage is also surging forth and ever since I discovered the recipe for Lovage Cheese Biscuits on Gluts and Gluttony, these have become a regular feature of the biscuit tin.

In fact, I have instructions that, if ever I feel my hand straying towards the cheese biscuits in the supermarket, I should smack it firmly and rush home to make these instead.

I've modified the recipe a bit. Kathy (who writes the lovely Gluts and Gluttony) uses 5 oz of Parmesan, but I use a strong cheddar (which was what just happened to be available the first time I tried these).

I also wouldn't slice the biscuits any thicker than 3 mm. I haven't found that they snap, as Kathy says, but that may be because I've used cheddar instead. To slice this thinly, chill the block for at least a couple of hours.

I make mine just over 1 inch square. They make a perfect, crisp mouthful. So perfect that, when I took them along to a Sunday lunch party, I barely got to taste them myself.

But if you don't get through them all (unlikely), it doesn't matter as they stay crisp very well in a tin.