foraging for free herbal tea
(take that, "natural flavorings")
We’ve taken a big step in our house…we’ve stopped buying herbal tea.
I’m not opposed to herbal tea and we still drink it all the time. In fact, I am very much for all kinds of tea that don’t have fake ingredients. One of those fake ingredients found in commercial tea is so-called “natural flavoring” which is code for “something we’d rather you didn’t know about because if you did you wouldn’t buy this.”
But herbal tea is an easy thing to provide for ourselves. (Black tea, maybe not so much…but I’m open to suggestions.) If you have a yard, or woods, or access to either, you have many ingredients for herbal tea.
Also, you don’t need a dehydrator, though it’s handy. We have a small one but most of what I’ve dried this year has been on these lovely trays that one of the cats already broke by sitting on — and Vin has since fixed again. I’m not sure exactly who did it, but I do have my suspicions…
The thing I’m learning about drying herbs is that you need a lot more than you think you might, because as they dry, they shrink considerably. See above — the violets at the top of the left tray are dried, and a fraction of the size of the violets on the other tray that are still fresh.
But it’s super satisfying to dehydrate herbs and flowers and watch our shelves fill up with these jars. Almost everything I’ve dried already grows here every year; the only thing I actually planted from seed were the calendula and poppies (which were easy, and I’m hoping they will reseed themselves next year).
Most sources recommend that you dry your ingredients in the shade (or inside) so as to not lose all the benficial properties of the herbs in bright sunlight.
Above is clover, mint, chamomile, and violets (Johnny Jump Ups), after a quick whizz through the coffee grinder. Our boys drink this every night.
In the first photo, clockwise, is dandelion, chaga, and two jars of yarrow. Chaga is much more like a black tea, though it’s actually a mushroom that grows on birch trees. Yarrow has feathery leaves that almost turn to dust if you crush them between your fingers, so go easy with them. Many sources say you also should not use it while pregnant.
In the second photo starting at the top are plantain, poppy petals, raspberry leaves, clover, and violets. We have mostly white clover, but both white and red are good for tea.
Still on my list to dry for tea this year are rosehips, mint, and lemon balm. I also have wild ambitions to make Ivan Chai from fireweed (great info and instructions here) but we’ll see if that happens. Meanwhile, pineapple weed is drying in bunches above the kitchen sink, strategically photographed so you don’t see the heaping pile of pots from my pea-blanching-and-freezing expedition earlier and you can just admire the rainy day we’re having here in late August.
Pineapple weed and yarrow both do really well when dried in bunches and hung upside down, which saves space in your dehydrating trays for other things that need to lay flat, like single leaves, or blossoms, or cats who want to use the screens as a hammock.
Happy foraging,
Shannon
I found a large, almost tree sized, wild rose bush that is loaded with hips...I will get a good batch of rose hips for syrup, and tea.
I like hanging herbs to dry, my kitchen corner is darker, and dry, so it looks like an ancient apothecary at times.