Herbal tea blends are healthy and can relieve many ailments. Mixing the fragrant ingredients for yourself is a special treat. Hundreds of years ago, people used local herbs and fruits to prepare healing teas.
Harvest healthy plants near your home
There used to be a wise herbalist in every village who knew about the healing properties of native plants and was asked for advice and help by the sick. Even then, tea was one of the most common applications – but it was usually not infused with cold or hot water as it is today, but cooked with milk. The leaves, flowers, fruits, stems and roots for these preparations were harvested on meadows, dirt roads, forest edges and creek banks in the neighborhood, but many also came from their herb beds in the garden. There horsetail and St. John’s wort, ribwort, comfrey, chamomile, meadowsweet and yarrow were found – medicinal plants for tea and other applications that will also grow in your lovingly landscaped garden.
Tea herbs from your garden
If you want to plant a garden with tea herbs yourself, you can accommodate a good selection in even just a small garden. Often, these plants prefer a sunny, sheltered place with a loose and humus-rich soil. A tip: If you are not sure when choosing the location, it’s best to look at the conditions under which the herbs grow in the wild and create the same conditions in your own garden. Harvested is in good weather in the late morning. For winter storage flowers, leaves and fruits are spread loosely for drying on a wooden frame covered with a plastic sieve or on a clean towel. Whole plants are hung in bunches. When the herbs are dry, they are grated – but not crushed too much, so that the essential oils do not evaporate easily. Anyone who is not sure whether the plants are completely dry, puts blotting paper into the container.
Trust your feeling
Basically, it is better to use fresh herbs for healing teas: These have a stronger effect, since some ingredients are lost when dry. But be careful, tea from fresh herbs tastes even more intense, so you should add a little less herbs. In general, the dosage for adults is one teaspoon per cup, the infusion must leave to draw for five to ten minutes. You can easily rely on your intuition when preparing. Dosing and brewing times are the right choice if the tea tastes so good that it makes you feel good. Anyone who experiments with them will naturally acquire a feeling for their optimal preparation over time.
However, cures with herbal teas may not last longer than six weeks, as the ingredients may otherwise cause side effects or become ineffective. At least two weeks should elapse before the start of a new treatment. The self-treatment but has limits: If the symptoms do not improve, you should consult a doctor. Not all tea herbs are infused with hot water. Some plants, such as the mallow, contain mucilage that is destroyed by dashing with hot water. This tea has to draw for about half an hour. Like a protective film, the active ingredients pass through the mucous membranes of the stomach, intestines and airways when drinking. Even hay fever plagued, it brings relief. In addition, mallow with their reddish purple flowers are a visual enrichment – and almost a must in every herb garden.
What is not missing there is peppermint: It is the tea herb par excellence – an ideal home remedy for stomach and intestinal complaints such as nausea, urge to vomit, bloating or diarrhea. Drinking three to five cups throughout the day can usually relieve the symptoms quite quickly. Peppermint does not weigh much, but it has an intense taste – so you should be restrained in the dosage.
Melissa is also almost indispensable in the herb bed. It has a calming, anti-spasmodic and appetizing effect and strengthens the cardiovascular system.
The marigold is also very popular because its flowers not only have an anti-inflammatory and decongestant effect, but also give every tea a wonderful yellow splash of color.
Decorative tea herb
A simultaneously decorative and very effective tea and medicinal plant for your own garden is St. John’s wort. It helps with depressive moods, mental fatigue, nervous stomach and intestinal complaints, anxiety and menopausal symptoms. It is great mixing it with lemon balm and peppermint to an invigorating good-mood tea or with lemon balm and hawthorn blossom to a soothing and balancing relaxation tea.
A tea made from stinging nettle, birch and dandelion leaves, peppermint and marigold blossoms cleanses the body. It has a regulating effect on the intestinal flora and strengthens the immune system. You can drink a cup every day for four to six weeks.
Mixing tea herbs
To mix healing tea is an art. It is necessary to develop a sense of how different herbs relate to each other. Because not only the desired healing effect of the tea is important, it must also have a pleasant aroma and an attractive color.
Only when tea is drunk with pleasure, the substances contained in the mixture can fully develop their effect. A cup of healing tea makes relief by the fact that the careful preparation and the intake of tea with the good feeling of doing something for yourself.
Highly effective herbs
Most healing tea blends are made up of three to four herbs. The focus is on that medicinal plant that is best suited to achieve the desired medical effect. One or more supplements are added to this lead compound. Add to this the auxiliaries, herbs that enhance the taste of the tea blend or give the tea fragrance and color.
The effect of the tea depends on the quality of the ingredients used. Tea from the grocery, farmer’s and pharmacy markets differ considerably in their price – and in their quality, as different regulations apply to food and pharmaceuticals in terms of active ingredient concentrations.
Herbs sold in pharmacies must meet the quality standards of the pharmacopoeia. It is therefore worthwhile to dip into one’s purse when buying the tea herbs. The big plus for medicinal herbs from the farmer’s market is their regional production. Here you can get products that come from people close by. Such teas usually have the most intense effect.
When buying tea herbs, however, always pay attention to biodynamic cultivation from less polluted regions and do not store your herb supplies too long.
Store tea properly
Chopped herbs can last for one to two years, provided they are dry, cool and dark. Light and heat or even moisture accelerate the chemical transformation of the active substances contained in the plants. It also allow the medically effective essential oils to escape more quickly and promote the multiplication of microorganisms.
Moisture also activates enzymes that can accelerate the breakdown of complex ingredients. Store tea herbs in light-tight and tightly closed containers. Tinted glass and wood are well suited, as well as tinplate. Do not use plastic containers as the plastic binds oils.
Prepare the healing tea
The most common way to prepare medicinal herbal tea is infusion. The dried herbs are doused with hot, no longer boiling water and allowed to draw for five to ten minutes. Longer brewing times are usually not necessary. They only lead to unnecessarily more bitter substances are dissolved from the herbs that affect the taste of the tea.
To prepare a cup of medicinal tea, use one heaped teaspoon of herbs per cup and drink two to three cups daily. If you want to make herbal tea as a thirst quencher, keep in mind that peppermint or lemon balm also have intensively acting ingredients. Make such tea thinner than a medicinal tea and change over and over again when using the herbs.
However, cures with herbal teas should not last longer than six weeks, and take a break for at least two weeks before starting over again.
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