How to brew a cup of wellness
The best herbs to grow & how to make a tasty, healthy brew
Alot of people have abandoned packets of herbal tea in their kitchen. My two year old chamomile tea looks (and tastes) like mouldy hay. The other ones stuffed in a cupboard range from unmemorable to unpleasant. For me, they're all easily surpassed by a tasty brew of Earl Grey or, better yet, coffee.
That I prefer a good cup of coffee may seem strange, considering my background as a commercial herb grower, and the extensive home herb garden I have today.
I love to use them in cooking, but it took a visit to herb grower Cathy Bouma to find out what makes a great morning cuppa.
She runs workshops on her North Canterbury block. The first thing she does is offer you some of her tea. One is a peppermint-lemon balm mix, the other a spiced tulsi that tastes like chai latte without the milk.
“It's perfect for cold autumn mornings and evenings,” says Cathy. The spiced tulsi is Cathy's favourite, but she loves them all.
“Blending your own herbal teas from your garden is so fulfilling.”
Why homegrown herbs make the best tea
The biggest advantage of homegrown herbs is freshness. Cathy passes around her chamomile tea, a herb a lot of people find disgusting.
“Smell this, it's lovely. It's so different from what you've probably experienced. Not at all like the stuff you get in the shop.”
She's right. Her tea has a grassy sweetness, something between apples and freshly cut hay, not at all like the musty tea bags I have, which are going into the compost heap as soon as I get home.
“The reason I grow herbs for tea is I want the best herbal tea,” says Cathy. “I can grow them in the best conditions – obviously organic – with no sprays.
I harvest them at their peak and dry them as efficiently as I can.”
The delicate art of tea blending
Creating a good herbal tea is an art.
“The knack to making a good tea is balancing the herbs, which may be good for you, but taste disgusting, with something that will make them pop a bit,” says Cathy. “It's easy to overdo it with too many conflicting things.
THE BIGGEST ADVANTAGE OF HOMEGROWN HERBS IS FRESHNESS
Some herbs don't need much to get that ‘oomph,' like fennel seed and peppermint. Herbs with less flavour, like marshmallow and skullcap, are useful to blend with them.”
Cathy's garden is full of possibilities. She encourages students to wander around, sniffing, tasting and picking what they like. I love the liquorice herbs, so I go for anise hyssop, and choose skullcap, peppermint, and lemon balm to go with it.
The fresh sprigs go straight into a teapot. You pour over just-boiled water, leave it for a few minutes to infuse, then sip. My chosen herbs all have calming properties, however the process of picking them, making the tea, and watching it infuse is relaxing in itself.
Tips for harvest time
Every plant has an optimum harvest time. Generally, says Cathy, it's not when you think.
“It's not the lush growth, but just before it's going to flower, that's when the best (therapeutic properties) are coming through.”
We learn cupfuls of useful tips:
• hops need to be touch-dry;
• elderberries don't all ripen on the branch at the same time, so Cathy waits until most are ripe and then picks the branch;
• the best picking time is when it's hot and dry, usually mid-morning to early afternoon.
“There's no point in harvesting in the wet because they're never going to dry.”
Drying
Fresh herb tea is delicious, but by drying the herbs, you can keep drinking it for months.
Cathy dries her herbs on racks in a solar drying shed. The sun heats the shed; fans inside it, driven by solar panels, circulate the heat. However, it's sun-dependent, which can be frustrating, and drying can be a complicated process, whether it's good weather or bad.
“You have to really watch them,” says Cathy. “If it's too hot, then water-dense plants like mints and lemon balm can go brown. If it's not hot enough, plants can take too long to dry and can go mouldy.”
During the final hours of the workshop, we used a simple blending guide (see page 49) to create teas. I made:
• a digestive tea (10g tulsi, 10g peppermint, 7g liquorice);
• a spicy tea (10g tulsi, 3 cardamom pods, 2 star anise, 1 cinnamon stick);
• an uplifting tea (7g tulsi, 7g lemon balm, 7g St John's wort).
I offered my experimental teas to visitors when I got home.
“This is really nice tea!” they told me. “Where did you buy it?”