What’s Your Cup Of Tea?

On a hot summer day, Christy Teter likes a tall glass of sun tea.

Rather than flavor her tea with loads of sugar, as so many other folks do, she picks a little spearmint from her garden and packs it into the pitcher.

The resulting tea is light and refreshing, with a nice kick of mint, and it’s not at all hard to make.

“Just put it in there and let the sun do the work,” she says.

Minty sun tea is just one of the many herbal brews you can make yourself, says Teter, who’s been making her own herbal teas for 12 years.

Sometimes, Teter makes hers from nothing but what she can pull out of her garden, other times she likes to zest up her bagged tea with a few fresh flavors.

Her favorite tea is Earl Gray with a little chamomile and lavender added.

“It helps me calm down in the evenings when the kids go to sleep,” she said.

Teter also uses her teas as a base for the line of skin care products she sells at Sue’s Super Nutrition and online.

If you see an herb mentioned on the label of a tea you buy at the store, and you can find it at a local garden store, you can use it to make your own herbal tea, Teter said.

“You can use them fresh or you can use them dried,” she said. “In the summer it’s a waste to dry them.

“You can dry them and have them available in the winter. If someone has a sore throat you’ve got it right there.”

Sandy Showalter, who teaches a class on herbal medicine at Blue Ridge Community College, says in addition to tasting good, herbal teas can have medicinal properties.

“Herbal teas are healing, they are a form of medicine,” she said. “Maybe you’ve heard that old saying ‘Make food your medicine,’ I believe that, definitely.”

Making herbals teas is easier than some might think, Showalter said.

In general, you should use a loose handful of fresh herbs to every two cups of water, she said. Then, it’s a matter of heating the water and allowing the herbs to steep.

How the tea is prepared depends on what kind of herb is being used.

For plants like spearmint, yarrow and lemon balm, which have flavorful foliage, Teter uses water that’s hot but not near boiling — even hot tap water could work, she says.

For herbs like Echinacea and ginseng, where the root is used, the water needs to be just below boiling, she said.

Teter stuffs the herbs into cotton tea bags and lets them steep for 15 minutes.

If that sounds a little too complicated, or if you’d like to learn more, Teter will teaching a class on how to identify herbs and make teas, salves and tinctures on June 24. You can get more information or sign up by calling 810-3936.

But making tea doesn’t have to be complicated, said Teter’s sister, Tracey Knight.

Like her sister, Knight prefers to add spearmint to her tea — but she’s not interested in seeking out the more exotic ingredients her sister uses in her mixes.

In the summer, she makes sun tea. In the winter, she puts the dried leaves in a tea ball.

“That’s about as complex as I get with things,” she said. “It’s pretty simple.”

Contact Martin Cizmar at 574-6277 or mcizmar@dnronline.com

Make Your Own Herbal Drinks For Summer

Sleepytime Tea

2 parts Lemon Balm

1 part Chamomile

1 part Skullcap

½ part Spearmint

½ part Violet

Combine ingredients in boiling water, remove from heat and allow the blend to steep for 15 minutes. Drain and serve.

Lavender Lemonade

2 to 3 handfuls fresh lavender

1 cup fresh lemon juice

½ cup honey or maple syrup

5 cups boiling water

Pour the boiling water over the lavender and allow to steep for 15 minutes. Drain the water into a container with other the ingredients then chill and serve.

This article was taken from: DNRonline.com