Making Herbal Teas and Culinary Blends

[applestar]

I have to dig up rainbowgardeners herbal tea recipe thread and where she got the fill and iron seal teabags.

I've been processing some of my dried herbs for tea. For now, I'm just making up a mixture that I'm calling "Herbal Tea Blend 2010": Unknown ratio of various mints, lemon balm, lemongrass, pineapple sage, lavender, lime basil, and stevia. maybe a tiny bit of hyssop as well. (Anybody know the likely property of this blend might be? -- Energizing? Sedative? ...certainly should be good for digestion I think? Hopefully a good combo for late PM and after dinner/bedtime tea.) I'll save individual jars of more pineapple sage and lemongrass which are almost dry, as well as mint and lavender as soon as I remember where I put them

I'm also making up a culinary "Herbal Blend 2010" consisting so far of basil, Rosemary, and carrot tops. I have a whole pile of Shiso gone to flower/young seeds to process for an Asian Blend. I want to dry and add some of the celery and leeks after harvesting them, and I need to harvest thyme. I also want to dry and make garlic "powder" this year.

[rainbowgardener]

Here's where I posted the tea recipes I made and the site they came from

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=128195&highlight=herbal+tea+recipes#128195


Here's the brand of tea bags I bought:

https://www.finum.com/tea-filters.htm

They aren't heat sealed just like envelope glue, moisten and press together.

There are lots of brands, this just happens to be what I picked. I was pleased with them, but another time, if I found ones that had strings on them that would be nice. You don't have to have strings, but I punched holes in mine, tied a string to them, made labels with my rainbowgardener logo/avatar on one side and the name of the tea on the other side, punched holes in the labels, tied on the strings and the labels. Very labor intensive! But since I was giving people hand painted boxes of mixed varieties of teas for Christmas, I thought they needed to know what was what. Time to start doing it again!

Here's what I found for healing properties of anise hyssop:

Medicinal Properties

Agastache foeniculum leaves have antibacterial properties and are taken as an infusion to alleviate coughs and colds. Anise is a carminative, warming digestive aid.

Anise hyssop clears excessive dampness in the stomach and spleen and heaviness in the chest. It is used as a preventive for heat stroke and summer colds.

The leaves are used topically as a compress for angina, burns, fever, headache, heatstroke, and herpes. The plant is excellent in baths and foot-baths for simply cooling off or for treating sunburn and fungal conditions such as athlete’s foot and yeast overgrowth.
https://ziaparker.com/blog/2010/08/1192/

Besides it gives that lovely anise-y flavor to things! With the drought, I didn't get very much this year, may end up buying a little

[applestar]

Oh, hey! Thanks, rainbowgardener!

[Runningtrails]

Making your own tea blends sounds like a great idea! I grow a lot of my own medicinal hers too. Thanks for the idea!

[applestar]

OK I found a few others as well for comparison:

[url=https://www.nmteaco.com/Tea-Pockets_p_142.html]Tea Pockets[/url]
(Pricey, but I like the design)

[url=https://romancefarmsorganics.com/shop/article_TBS-2/Self-filling-tea-bags-regular.html?shop_param=cid%3D8%26aid%3DTBS-2%26]Self filling tea bags[/url]

[url=https://www.naturalteabags.com/Store.html]Natural Tea Bags[/url]
(Here I thought Tea Pockets were pricey... )

There is also a product called [url=https://www.englishteastore.com/about-t-sacs.html]T-sac[/url] which appears to be more widely distributed -- e.g. KitchenKapers and Vitamin Shoppe carry them.

[lorax]

AS, I can't recall. Did I ever give you my Horchata blend recipe, or did I just talk about it and then forget it entirely?

Oh, and on the subject of making your own teabags, I go whole hog - I actually make my own tisu out of peroxide-treated banana fibre, then seal using a non-toxic silicone adhesive designed for the purpose (I buy it at the local craft store).

[applestar]

Lorax, you mentioned Horchata once before in [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=154620&highlight=horchata#154620]this thread[/url], but didn't exactly give us a recipe. So, what is it?

BTW, that was one of the threads I wanted to revisit but it was lost during the height of the busy season, so I'm glad to be reminded of it. There are so many treasure threads in the forum that sometimes I come across seemingly purely by accident!

...oh and tell us more about your diy teabags!

[lorax]

HA! I was charmingly vague in that thread, wasn't I?

Here's a blend with some proportions for Horchata; this is the one I learned in Loja. It's a few herbs short of the full 42, but I really like it.

Ataco (Amaranthus muricantus) - 1 TSP
Dried bracts of purple or red Bougainvillea - 1 TSP
Dried petals of red Hibiscus - 1 TSP
Dried petals of Rosa rugosa or similar aromatic rose - 1 TBSP
Dried flowers of Marigold (Tagetes spp) - 1 TBSP or 1 flower, if you dried them whole
Malva olorosa (Marshmallow) - 1 TSP; I like the dried flowers, but others swear by the leaves.
Toronjil (Melissa officianalis) - 1 TBSP
Basil - 1 TSP
Horsetail (dried frondlets) - 1 TSP
Chamomile - 1 TBSP; I like the dried flowers, but whole-herb is good too
Hierba Luisa (Lemongrass) - 7-8 long blades or 1 TBSP of dried
Mint - 1 TBSP
Peperomia congona - 1 TSP
Blackberry leaf - 1 TSP (Raspberry may be substituted; they have the same properties.)
Cedron (Aloysia triphylla) - 1 TBSP

To this, you can add any or all of the following (I add them all in various blends):

Lantana camara - 1 TBSP; I prefer a mix of leaves and flowers
Matico (Piper anduncum) - 1 TBSP; leaves
Mariapanga (Piper peltatum) - 1 TSP; leaves
Grated dry Gingerroot - 1 TSP
Whole Allspices - 1 TSP or 10 fruits
Black Pepper - 10 corns
Schinus molle (Pink pepper) - 10 corns
Whole Cloves - 3-4
Cinnamonbark - 1 TSP in small shreds
Anise - 1 TSP, seeds (or Star Anise, 1, broken up)
Black Cardamon - 1 TSP, seeds
Ishpingo (Cinnamon flower) - 1, crushed
Passionflower (P. ligularis) - up to 2 dried crushed flowers
Arrayan (a true myrtle) - 1 TSP; leaves are best, but berries are great when you can find them.
Hierba Buena (Lemon Verbena) - 1 TBSP

(edited, because how did I manage to forget Cedron and Blackberry in the main recipe? I must be getting old.)

You'll know it's right when it makes a sort of shocking pink tea with a marvelous lemony multi-herb scent. Even just the main recipe is a gorgeous tea; the idea is to personalize or specify the blend with the optional herbs and spices.

For example, if I'm going to use Horchata for indigestion, I'll add more Matico, Gingerroot, and Arrayan.
If I want it for an insomniac, I'll go heavy on the Passionflower, Ishpingo, and Lantana.
If I want it to be more stimulant, I'll add more of the peppers and the cloves.

[digitS']

Good Heavens!

I will now make a very lame post to follow Lorax.

. . . just to say: Anise hyssop is a favorite of mine. A few plants are saved each year and either harvested or allowed to self-sow for more plants in the following season.

I like to use anise hyssop, about 1:1, with lemon verbena. That plant has grown very large but must be cut back and carefully protected thru the winter, on the floor of my unheated greenhouse.

Okay, I will now go hide in a dark corner with a steaming mug.

Steve

[applestar]

Ooh! Steve, thanks for reminding me! I have to dig up my Lemon Verbena to bring inside! I meant to do that the other day and ran out of time....

Lorax, so do you have a Chinese apothecary cabinet with tiny little drawers (I'm envisioning Pippi Longstocking's cabinet you know... ) or shall I picture a more European look with rows and rows of jars? (Maybe a black cat twining around your ankles? )

[lorax]

My jars are not neatly lined up at all; they're jumbled in my spice/herb cabinet. They are all labeled clearly in at least 2 languages, though.

And my cat is grey.

[rainbowgardener]

oh man; I thought I was cool for filling my own teabags (and making little labels for them!). Lorax just blew me out of the water, making the paper and the glue and making one's own tea bag! Amazing!

[lorax]

RG, I'm actually experimenting this year with a no-glue, one-staple design, where the edges of the bag are rolled/pleated and then held in place by the single staple for the string at the top. Once I get it figured out, I'll post the folding instructions.

As for the paper, I was making heavy laid bond from banana fibre anyhow; it was a logical step to tisu and crepe papers. The only difference is the amount of water relative to the pulp when the paper is being laid on.

Y'all could do something similar if you grow mulberry (especially now that it's fall and the leaves will have turned) - Gampi tisu is a really simple paper to make, and holds up well to the stresses of being a teabag.

[applestar]

So, for this last batch of herbal tea blend, I was just stuffing any "tea herbs" that I'd harvested ahead of the frost/freeze in brown paper bags. I put some in the dehydrator but with the heat on and indoor RH rapidly decreasing they more-or-less dried fine in the bags. Once dried, I crunched them up in the bag, removed the stems, then stirred them in a large colander sitting over a waxed paper. This let me remove additional stems and last clinging leaves and flowers from the stems. I also rolled in my hands and crunched up the larger leaves some more. When done, I put the blended herbs from the colander in a jar labeled "Large Leaved teapot herbal tea blend" and the smaller leaves that fell on the waxed paper in a jar labeled "Herbal Tea Blend for tea balls."

For the moment, for personal use, clamshell tea ball infusers and a personal sized tea pot with infuser basket are proving to be the easiest to use (and clean).