Backyard Tea

[talon]

This is an OK article on herbal teas, but it could have been much better. The author wasn't very adventurous, didn't have a lot of variety, and used only fresh herbs, which is probably why most of his tea experiments all tasted the same.

For tea making, truly, the best teas are made with dried herbs, not fresh. The drying process concentrates the essential oils and flavinoids in the herb that is released upon steeping or decocting.

I know a lot of herbal tea companies rely on a key herb or spice to make their tea tasty. Mint, hibiscus, and chickory root seem to be the most common keynote herbs.

Many fresh herbs still taste "green", with too much of the chlorophyll used for growth still in the leaves and overpowering the more delicate flavinoids that come out with drying. There's a reason many herbalists say you need to use 1 tablespoon of fresh herbs to get the equivalent of 1 teaspoon of dried herbs. Drying removes the chlorophyll and allows the true flavor to shine. Some plants have a high level of coumarin - the chemical that gives fields their "new mown hay" smell - and tends to make fresh herb teas taste like grass.

Mint is good fresh as well as dried, but dried mint goes a lot farther than fresh. Many people use mint as the flavor carrier of their herbal tea for this reason.

But sometimes, I tire of mint in my tea.

There are many other herbs that do well in tea: lemon basil, holy basil, purple basil, lavender, raspberry leaves, blackberry leaves, rose geraniums (aka pelargoniums), any of the citrusy pelargoniums (lemon, orange, pineapple), lemon thyme, angelica, lemon basil, bergamot (aka oswego tea and bee balm), rosehips, majoram, rosemary, sage, lemon verbena, sorrel, yellow dock, aniseed, dillseed, catnip, chamomile, hibiscus, horehound root, licorice root, lemon balm, pine needles, dandelion flower and root, spruce needles, spice bush, mountain tea, labrador tea, staghorn sumac, thyme, woodruff, hyssop, anise hyssop, orange thyme, lavender hyssop, fennel, pineapple sage, hops, jasmine, kudzu flowers, nettle, milk thistle, tangerine scented marigolds, tarragon, and of course, all the many mints.

Most of these plants will grow from Zone 5 to Zone 8 with little or no trouble at all.

If you want to add spices and fruits to the tea, it opens up the flavor possibilities tremendously.

With only a few exceptions, blends are better than single herb teas. Mint, chamomile, sumac, hyssop, bergamot, rose hip, pine needle, spruce needle, and Labrador tea are all good to drink as single herb teas. Everything else tastes better in a blend of two or more herbs.

It may take a while to find the right balance and blend of herbs you love best. Almost all herbs make better teas when dried first, which means you can buy different dried herbs and experiment until you find the tea you want, then you can grow just those herbs in your garden or in containers in the window.

One of my favorite blends is my Flower Child Blend: lavender blossoms, jasmine flowers, clover blossoms, chamomile flowers, tangerine scented marigold petals, cornflowers (no real flavor, but makes for a prettier tea), and rose scented geraniums. Depending on the strength of the flowers, the proportions of the blend changes from year to year, but in the end, this tea is strongly floral and so sweet additional sweetening isn't needed.

Sometimes, I want a nice lemon tea. Then I mix lemon thyme, lemon verbena, lemon balm, lemon basil, and a bit of pineapple sage. It tastes strongly of lemon, is lemon scented, and the thyme and basil give it a bit of bite while the sage both sweetens it and adds an underlying hint of bitterness.

I'm not always anti-mint. I have a beloved mint tea blend that I will drink hot or cold: peppermint, spearmint, pineapple mint, bergamot, and apple mint. It's just that sometimes, a little variety is nice, and there are so many delicious tea herbs that getting in a rut with just one flavor seems a bit sad to me.

Try your own blends and see what your favorite becomes.