I've been trying some herb tea blends. The Herbal Tea Garden book has a chapter about herb tea blends. She talks about after the Boston Tea Party someone suggested they try some of their native plants and she gives several suggestions for 2 herb blends, then 3 herb blends and multi herb blends. So I'm experimenting.
This book doesn't really talk about medicinal properties so much as just having herb tea to enjoy. I've had a hard time finding herb teas in the grocery store that I like. So the first one I tried was rosemary and lavender. I liked it. I love rosemary. One of our favorite black teas from Eastern Shores Tea has rosemary in it. I wanted to try combining this duo with some other herbs. In Rosemary Gladstar's Family Herbal I found a blend of several herbs to use as a nerve tonic and for depression. So I tried that today it has a lot of chamomile in it and I'm not crazy about chamomile although it's not too bad, but I decided to add the rosemary along with the other herbs in the remedy lemon balm, lavender and roses and it toned down the chamomile flavor.
I want to try sage and lemon balm. A 3 herb blend I want to try is thyme, rosemary and spearmint. Then a multi blend is rosemary, lavender, lemon balm, spearmint and cloves. Most of these recipes are a tablespoon of each herb and a cup of tea is made with a teaspoon of the blend. I steep for 5 mins. It's all according to taste unless you are doing a medicinal mixture. Rosemary has you steep the medicinal blends more like 20 mins. I do look up the medicinal purposes of each herb because I don't want to be drinking something all the time that may cause a problem.
As I said before I don't grow all these herbs, but I've bought dried herbs. I harvest some of my herbs today. I was told in the nursery that they like to be trimmed regularly, it helps them to grow more. So I cleaned up all my plants and pruned them back and I'm drying all the herbs. I'm hanging the bigger ones and just laying out the smaller bunches.
Rosemary was a friend of Tasha's and she says some very nice things about her and says she was a very good herbalist. As I was pampering my plants today and cleaning them and gave them a good soak I thought of Tasha and how she loved her plants and loved to groom them.
Linda
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5 comments:
Linda
Thanks for the book suggestions. I've been looking for one about herbal teas for years. That was very good advice to look up the medicinal purposes before you make up the teas! I think sometimes people forget the herbs were the original pharmaceuticals.
Jane
Dear Linda,
I enjoyed this post so much! I have Rosemary's book and it is wonderful. The Herbal Tea Garden book looks wonderful, too. Thank you for sharing the blends you tried, and would like to try. I too, find chamomile to have a strong flavor. I do drink it, but I like your idea of adding other herbs to it. Right now I drink dandelion, hawthorne and peppermint everyday, but I drink them separately. Thank you for sharing the information about trimming the herbs back to promote more growth. It is so humid here I can not hang them to dry. What do you think of drying them in a dehydrator set on low heat?
I always look up the medicinal aspects of an herb, too. It is just like Jane said, sometimes people forget herbs were the original pharmaceuticals!
I found another book you may enjoy, 20,000 secrets of Tea. It is very informative, but I still think Dr. James Duke's book, The Green Pharmacy Herbal Handbook is a must have.
I was wondering if you might consider sharing how you organize your herbal binder. I would love to get started on one, but I am not sure where to begin.
I have enjoyed your posts on Tasha and I think it is so kind that you thought of her while caring for your herbs.
As always, I learn so much from you! Thank you for doing this post!
Love, Paula
Paula the herb binder is mostly print out right now and I just have them organized according to their source. I would like to eventually have a section for each herb, but I'm still in the process of gathering and trying to read information. You might look at how your herb books are organized. I guess you would have a choice of doing it by herb or by topic (for instance medicinal, tea, bath and body, home or by health issues depression, cold and flu, stomach issues, lung issues and so on). I'm using the remedies I have issues with. The next one I want to work on is lung remedies for congestion, probably a steam or a rub or both. Linda
What a great post. I have a lot of herbs growing that I cook with but I forget to use them for tea. I'm a tea fanatic so I'll have to try some of these blends!
Dear Linda,
Thank you so much for taking time to answer my question and letting me know you did. :) You have given me so many ideas to get started, and I appreciate it so much! I will keep you posted.
Thanks so much!
Love, Paula
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