Homegrown Herbal Tea

[Phaedra]

I bought some dehydrated fruits recently - pineapple, cherries, and black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) for a richer flavor of my herbal tea selection.

By the way, I also combined roasted brown rice and Japanese green tea into Genmai-tea, one of my favorite teas.

As I opened the pineapple slices first, I tried to make a cold brew of pineapple and roses (harvested in 2022, almost finished) yesterday. The color of roses was shown in the beginning.

After about 24 hours sitting in the fridge, the colors and tastes of both ingredients were harmoniously integrated, and it's absolutely a 'WOW', so naturally delicious!

 

[Phaedra]

Today's cold brew: rose, aronia berries/chokeberries, and roselle

 

[Phaedra]

Today's cold brew: rose, mint, dried pineapple, dried cherry

I started picking Calendula for making calendula salve later in autumn.

 

[Phaedra]

Calendula (petals) harvested and dried till today

My mixed mints - now we are talking, finally I can have a decent harvest.

See you in a few weeks!

I rinsed them and let dry in a shady place - tomorrow I will remove the stems, so the leaves would dry quicker.

 

[Phaedra]

I kept harvesting herbs for tea, lemon balm

This is the first year, that I can finally harvest a small jar of sweet osmanthus.

It adapts well in the greenhouse, but I don't like the current shrubby style.

So, I pruned it today and would like to turn it gradually into a more tree-like form. I will share the photo later.
The flowers are so fragrant, and I can't wait to make iced sweet osmanthus (black) tea!

Another tea ingredient is also blossoming - tea Jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum). However, as they came just this spring (and just tiny rooted cuttings), there are only very few flowers. I will dig them out and bring them back to the greenhouse in another few weeks. Hopefully, they will start to stabilize and establish much better next growing seasons.

I also harvested a lot of catnip, to make small catnip pillows for cats - it will be one of my handcrafted products in my shop later.

 

[Phaedra]

Agastache rugosa, it's such a wonderful plant - pollinator-friendly, good ingredients for herbal tea, and they look totally great as dried flowers.

This year, I harvested a lot of herbs. Those didn't become tea ingredients were collected in a cotton bag. I will make some small herb pillows soon.

 

[digitS']

The Agastache rugosa is used in cooking in Korea, I read. And, in China as a treatment for nausea.

Trying to be helpful to my herbal tea needs, DW purchased a bag of Mandarin oranges. I had some for breakfast the recent 2 mornings; it's quite tasty. However, they are from South America. We won't have California oranges until November -- I checked again.

I tried steeping the peels and they are a little bitter. This continues to reinforce my idea that the bitterness increases with time off the tree. They are sorta okay. I tried them with licorice root. Okay. Yesterday, I tried them with anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum). Still, okay! Anise hyssop can do it -- stand up to the flavor of the less-than-perfect .

I will peel and dehydrate the Mandarins but I have a pound of orange zest in an Amazon cart . DW said, "why aren't you trying regular oranges?" Well, sure but I am going with organic if I'm using the peels, at least, it's gotta say "organic."

We have an Aldi-owned chain in the U.S., @Phaedra . Trader Joe's has mostly organic. It's not all that convenient for our shopping so it may be best to buy the already processed zest. Besides, grating must be required on those larger oranges with their heavy skins. I'll get into the dehydrating a little more this Winter.

Steve

 

[Phaedra]

The Agastache rugosa is used in cooking in Korea, I read. And, in China as a treatment for nausea.

Trying to be helpful to my herbal tea needs, DW purchased a bag of Mandarin oranges. I had some for breakfast the recent 2 mornings; it's quite tasty. However, they are from South America. We won't have California oranges until November -- I checked again.

I tried steeping the peels and they are a little bitter. This continues to reinforce my idea that the bitterness increases with time off the tree. They are sorta okay. I tried them with licorice root. Okay. Yesterday, I tried them with anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum). Still, okay! Anise hyssop can do it -- stand up to the flavor of the less-than-perfect .

I will peel and dehydrate the Mandarins but I have a pound of orange zest in an Amazon cart . DW said, "why aren't you trying regular oranges?" Well, sure but I am going with organic if I'm using the peels, at least, it's gotta say "organic."

We have an Aldi-owned chain in the U.S., @Phaedra . Trader Joe's has mostly organic. It's not all that convenient for our shopping so it may be best to buy the already processed zest. Besides, grating must be required on those larger oranges with their heavy skins. I'll get into the dehydrating a little more this Winter.

Steve

Steve, I am not sure if your orange peels still include some white parts? Those are the source of bitterness.

I have a lot of anise hyssop but not yet try them for tea. I dried two bunches of them but mainly for my herb pillow. I collected yesterday some catnip and want to try catnip tea.

 

[flowerbug]

@digitS' perhaps you're falling into the "too much" area of the orange peel? i've always found that just a little can go a long ways.

 

[digitS']

I am not sure if your orange peels still include some white parts? Those are the source of bitterness.

They do, indeed, contain the white, Phaedra. I looked for organic and went for the Mandarins. The skins are very thin and neither the colored nor the white amount to much. One reason that I have avoided the regular sweet orange is because I felt that I would need to grate them. That sounds a bit messy in the dehydrator.

"too much" area of the orange peel? i've always found that just a little can go a long ways.

I don't know what too much would be. I've never done a thing with orange zest that I can remember (although I like it in purchased desserts). What I can see on the internet right now is using half the peel from an orange for 2 cups. What I'm doing with the much smaller Mandarins is 3 cups for about 1/2 peeling.

Steve