harvesting peppermint tea from the herb & tea garden

09 Wednesday Oct 2013

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harvesting peppermint, herb, herbal tea, mint, mint tea, peppermint

Last week, Brian and I harvested all of the peppermint from the planter box that Brian built at the top of the herb and tea garden last summer. A hardy, pervasive perennial, peppermint is easy to grow and is best kept in a confined area as it can take over a small area very quickly.

Here is the planter box last summer soon after I planted the mint. It did not take long for the peppermint to grow and fill the box!

Cool, refreshing, peppermint tea is the most popular of all herbal teas and is one of the oldest and best-tasting home remedies for indigestion (Mindell, 1992).

Rather than drying the plant whole, we stripped the leaves and then dried them in a dehydrator.

Then we gently crushed the leaves inside a glass jar with a muddler.

According to Brown (2001), drinking peppermint tea “improves digestion and calms the digestive system, reducing wind, griping pains, colic and nausea”. It is not surprising then that peppermint tea is a key ingredient of many remedies for indigestion and irritable bowel syndrome. Mindell (1992) adds that “[st]udies show that peppermint lessens the amount of time food spends in the stomach by stimulating the gastric lining. It aso relaxes the stomach muscles and promotes burping”. Peppermint is a wonderful help for heartburn, stomachache, nausea and vomiting. It often relieves migraine headaches, which are frequently accompanied by nausea.

I drink it because it tastes great!

Brown, D. (2001). Herbal: The Essential Guide to Herbs for Living. London, England: Pavilion Books Ltd.

Mindell, E. (1992). Earl Mindell’s Herb Bible. New Yorl, NY: Simon & Schuster.

picking rosehips for winter tea

15 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by Delena Rose in tea, wild berries

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berry picking, herbal tea, immune-boosting tea, Lucy, rose hips, rosehip tea, rosehips, tea, vitamin C, winter tea

I like to let the tea steep overnight and the next day make a delicious rosehip ice tea with a squeeze of lemon. ~Beverley Gray, Aroma Borealis

Last evening, we brought our berry picking baskets with us on the evening walk. The rosehips have been turning bright red, beckoning us cheerfully along the trail and letting us know that they are ready for picking. As I still have many jars of rosehip jelly and syrup from last summer I have decided to simply freeze this year’s berries and use them for winter teas.

I pull the ends off of the hips before freezing in large ziplock bags so that they are ready for use straight from the freezer. Then, when I am feeling under the weather in the winter months I can dip into the bag for a quick immune-boosting tea. Click here for a previous post on the medicinal and nutritional benefits of rosehips, or recipes for rosehip jelly and rosehip syrup.

For the tea, I use about half a cup of hips to about six cups of water. I allow the tea to steep on the stove on low heat for a few hours and add agave nectar (to taste) to sweeten.

Lucy also kept us company on the trail. She is a handy berry-picking companion as she is always on the alert for coyotes or the rare bear. She also keeps the spruce grouse, mice and pocket gophers busy!