I used to be a regular tea drinker then went off it in favour of coffee. Sometimes though, I get sick of coffee and make a tea from herbs I’ve dried from the garden, usually single ingredients—sage, rosemary, lemon balm or (even more lemony) lemon verbena. (Note: sage tea with a spoonful of honey is great for a sore throat. Just sip and let it trickle down.)
I’m sharing this post on making wildwood tea from the excellent Milkwood Permaculture site. It’s something I’m going to have a go at. A variety of ingredients and flavours will be more interesting than just one:
Wildwood tea—your place in a teapot
Foodnstuff 
September 27, 2018 at 8:59 pm |
I’ve never thought of using orange peel in tea before. But it sounds very soothing for the throat. Do you steep your herbs fresh, or dried, Bev? Back when I had lemon balm, I would use it fresh. I imagine it’s much stronger, when dried.
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September 28, 2018 at 12:57 pm |
Whether I use them fresh or dried depends on whether they’re actually growing in the garden at the time. For those that die back over winter (e.g. lemon verbena) I make sure I have a stock of dried leaves on hand to get me through, otherwise I use fresh. I don’t know about stronger when dried, because those with highly volatile oils will probably lose some of their punch as they age. But then you can probably use more of the dried product to compensate. I suspect fresh is best, as with most things.
I have yellow and orange calendula flowering at the moment and I just picked some petals to dry for my wildwood tea. Nothing like a bit of colour!
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September 28, 2018 at 2:29 pm |
Those calendula petals sound nice. I just planted one out in a pot, recently. 🙂
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September 29, 2018 at 9:25 am |
I’ve often used them to ‘pretty up’ a salad.
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