How to make Tea Mixes

Mixing your own herbs for tea is as easy as choosing the scents that appeal to you and blending up your favorite choices. I find that in the summer months, iced tea is the beverage of choice in my home. When fall rolls around with cooler weather hot cups of tea are what we enjoy.  Hot or cold here are the basic herbs that I grow to make a fabulous tea that everyone loves.

Flowery Notes-The basic blend includes flowery notes of some sort. I use violet flowers, chamomile flowers, dandelion petals, calendula petals or wild rose petals for this. Add one part of this herb.

Place Holder-After adding the flowers (fresh or dried), I add the place holding flavor. To this, I mean the flavor that ties everything together and keeps my iced tea tasting strong enough to withstand a few ice cubes melting into it. Dried red raspberry leaves or dried nettles work well here. Add two parts of these herbs.

Fruity-Next, a fruity or naturally sweet component is nice. I use dried rosehips most often. These are sold in many herb shops or health food stores if you have not harvested your own. Another addition to this would be Hibiscus flowers. They are not only sweet and lemony flavored; they also impart a rich, red color to your teas. Add one part of these herbs.

Cooling-Finally, I add the cooling herb. Mint is usually most common here. You can add any combination or variety of your available mints. Add one part of these herbs. A nice and naturally cooling herb is Borage. The leaves or flowers can be used.

After mixing up your favorite blend of herb tea, using these ideas, keep in a glass jar in a dark place. Use at least one teaspoon of dried herbs per cup of water, more to taste.

A part means that whatever measurement you have handy: i.e. your hand, a cup, a tablespoon, is the overall measurement, and you use one or more of them per ingredient.

I hope you can come up with a variation to call your own, that tastes refreshing and delicious for your whole family.  You can dry the ingredients to use from your garden just be sure that they have not been sprayed with any harmful sprays.  If you don’t want to grow your own mountainroseherbs.com  has a good selection.