Health Boost - How To Make Yourself A Herbal Tea Infusion?

Herbal teas are plant materials being infused together with boiling water using the roots, seeds, flowers, leaves or stems of plants. that are flavourful, refreshing and contribute to your good health.

Herbal Teas do not contain tannin, caffeine or fluoride but do contain medicinal properties that can soothe, refresh and invigorate thereby promoting better health.

Herbal Infusions are not exactly the same as herbal teas because although you would make it in the same way as you would a brew of herbal tea, a herbal infusion needs a much longer time to steep to produce a stronger, more potent brew.

It is very easy to make simple herbal teas and/or herbal infusions in the comfort of your own home.

If you choose to use fresh herbs then you will need to remember to double the amount of herb and/or spice plant material that you use.

You can either use the herb and/or spice plant material intact and just crush them a little bit to release the volatile oils although you may prefer to chop or snip the herb and/or spice plant material into smaller pieces before pouring the water over them.

You may choose to only use one variety of herb and/or spice plant material or you may choose to use a mixture of herbs and/or spices plant material for your herbal tea or herbal infusion.

Infusers are used to steep the herbs and they hold the herb and/or spice mixtures whilst the hot water moves through the holes of the infuser down into the teapot, mug or cup.

Just remember that if you intend to drink the herbal tea straight away that you do not infuse the herb and/or spice mixture for too long or the tea will become bitter and you may need to add either honey and/or lemon for you to want to drink it.

Teas can also be drunk cold if refrigerated for up to 24 hours. Cold herbal teas are very refreshing in hot weather and are useful if you have a medical condition which needs a cooling treatment rather than a heating one.

Cold herbal tea infusions are often used for other purposes, such as chemical-free insecticidal sprays, skin lotions, skin creams, bath potions as well as hair rinses.

There is great satisfaction to be had in growing your very own Herbal Tea Garden.

It is very easy to grow your own herbs and spices if you have the space available to do so and most herbs and spice plants can be grown in pot and/or containers.

A herbal tea garden includes growing any of the following plants -

• Angelica
• Basil
• Bergamot
• Borage
• Catmint
• Chamomile
• Geranium (Lemon-scented)
• Geranium (Rose-scented)
• Golden Rod (Aniseed-scented)
• Horehound
• Jasmine
• Lavender
• Lemon Balm
• Lemongrass
• Lemon Verbena/Vervain
• Lovage
• Marjoram
• Mint
• Parsley
• Pelargonium (Scented varieties)
• Peppermint
• Rose (Rose Hip and Rose Petals)
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Spearmint
• Thyme
• Woodruff
• Wormwood

If you are using fresh herbs and/or spices, just remember that you would need to use approximately double the amount of herb and spice plant material than you would if you were using only dried herbs.

The first thing that you will need to do is to go out and harvest the herb and/or spice plant material that you will need.

Use a pair of scissors or secateurs to cut fairly close to the ends of bottom of the stems. This will encourage new plant growth on the existing plant.

Then you need to rinse your newly harvested herb and/or spice plant material under some water to make sure that there are no hidden 'nasties' that will end up in your herbal tea brew.

Then use a tea-towel to dry-off the herb and/or spice plant material of any excess mositure and get ready to prepare the herbs to make a herbal tea and/or infusion.

By crushing or breaking up the plant into smaller pieces you are enabling the medicinal properties found within the plants volatile oils to be extracted easily.

The next step is to put the herbal mixture into a teapot infuser or infuser ball and gently pour in some boiling water over the top of the herbs and then place a cover on it. If you a using a mug or cup then a saucer will suffice as a cover or lid. A cover or lid helps to prevent the steam from escaping and it is the heat and steam that actually extracts the medicinal properties that are found in the plants volatile oils.

A cautionary word of warning though, If you intend to use a glass teapot, mug or cup just make sure that you pour the boiling hot water into the glass slowly to prevent the glass from expanding too rapidly and possibly explode in front of you.

Now it is time to let the herbal mixture steep for at least 5 minutes if you intend drinking it hot or for 10-20 minutes if you wish to drink it luke warm as a Herbal Infusion.

If you did not use a contained infuser or infuser ball remember that you will need to strain out the plant matter with a tea strainer or something similar that is able to separate the liquid from the plant material before you drink it.

You can choose to drink the tea now or it can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours.

Steep it for longer if you wish to drink it cold or want to consume a higher potency of the herbal mixture because the longer that you wait the more potent the brewed herbal tea mixture will get.

You can also use your own grown garden herbs and/or spices that you have harvested by drying-off the herbs and/or spice plant material before using them to make a herbal tea or herbal infusion.

One method is to dry-off the freshly harvested herbs and/or spice plant material by bunching up the herbs and tying up the ends with a string before hanging them upside down in a damp-free, dark place that has plenty of air flow.

Another method of drying out fresh herbs and/or spice plant material is to make a drying rack using recycled material such as a an old fly screen/bug screen door or just the screen material stretched on top of a purpose-built wooden frame.

The herbs and/or spice plant material is placed down flat on top of the screen and is left outside in the sun to dry. You will need to turn over the plant material every day until the leaves crinkle up which is a sign that they have dried out.

Once the herbs are dried out they are ready to be used in your herbal tea infusion as a dried herbal mixture.

Dried herbs and spices are easily stored in airtight sealed containers for future use and are a very convenient option in lieu of using fresh herbs and/or spices.

I would recommend that you use a herbal infuser or infuser ball to place the loose dried herbs in before pouring the hot water over otherwise you will need to use a tea-strainer to pour the liquid through into a cup and/or mug as no-one wants to be picking bits of herbal plant matter out fom their teeth.

The photographs above show different types of teapots that have a herbal tea infuser inside them.

If you do not have access to fresh herbs and/or spices plant material and you have not been able to dry-out any of your own fresh herbs and/or spices plant material then you can always use pre-packaged dried herbs and/or spices as an alternative.

You just simply need to boil up a teapot or kettle of water and pour the boiling water over the pre-packaged loose dried herbs or herbal teabag and let it steep for up to 5 minutes before drinking it or for longer if you want a herbal infusion.

For the majority of people using a herbal teabag is by far the most convenient method to brew theselves up a herbal tea or herbal infusion because all they need to do is to grab themselves a herbal teabag, place it in a mug or cup and pour boiling water through it allowing it to steep for at least 5 minutes before drinking it ... it really is as easy as that!

With that said, I would recommend that you should not drink only the one type of medicinal tea every day for more than 3 weeks at a time.

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