Loose Leaf Teas

If all you know about making tea is dropping a little tea bag in a cup of hot water, you might feel a little hesitant about making herbal loose leaf tea. Actually, it’s easy and fun and more than worth it! It’s pretty well known that the poorest quality teas are used for tea bags. I mean, who knows how long they’ve been in the box? Buying bulk whole leaf herbs, or better still growing your own herbs, is one way to get higher quality and more potent medicinal teas.

Step 1: Boil Some Water

Fill your tea kettle or sauce pan with spring or filtered water and heat it to boiling. It has to be hot enough so it can quickly infuse into the herbs and pull out all the vitamins and minerals.

Step 2: Place Herbs In Tea Strainer

The one decision you have to make is how to strain out all the leaf and flower parts of your herbs. You can use a tea ball, a French or Tea press, a tea infuser, a coffee maker, or just a mason jar and cheese cloth. How you decide to strain your tea is your choice. Use about a teaspoon of herbs per cup. If you’re making your tea in a quart jar, you want to use about an eighth of a cup.

Step 3 : Pour Hot Water

Super simple. Pour your just boiled water into your container so that your herbs are submerged in the hot water.

Step 4: Steep Your Tea

Cover your container with lid or plate so that the steam doesn’t escape. This helps the essential oils that are in the herb not to evaporate out of your herbal tea with it’s steam.

Step 5: Strain Your Tea

If you used a tea strainer, just take it out of your cup or jar and put the residue in the compost.

Step 6: Sweeten Your Tea

Sweeten your tea with honey or with whatever sweetener you prefer. After you get used to drinking teas regularly, you may find that you don’t even need a sweetener in your tea.

But what is an herbal infusion?

An herbal infusion is simply a very strong tea made with one or more herbs that make a potent medicine dense with nutrition. These are delicious, and depending on what types of herbs you use, they can be jam-packed with all the essential vitamins and minerals you need to nourish your body’s systems and organs. Of course, the longer you steep the herbs, the stronger they become.

Here's a healthy recipe you can try:

Herbal Digestive Blend Recipe

This is a delicious tea that can be used to support healthy digestion or simply enjoyed for the taste. Licorice root may cause high blood pressure when taken in large amounts frequently. Those concerned with this effect might want to use stevia leaf or honey instead of licorice.

Ingredients: