Share The Seeds
Gardening Area => The Eco-Garden => Topic started by: Auxin on September 14, 2014, 05:15:46 AM
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I'm curious what teas people grow (and subsequently drink, lol)
My current list is:
Thyme
Sage
Lavender flowers
Catnip (sort of musky local wild variety that a deer led me to in february!)
Korean mint
Oregano
Rosemary
I like to add the dried lavender flowers when I make green tea, it lets me buy really cheap green tea ;)
I used to love mixing lemon balm with thyme or sage but I had to stop when it caused hypothyroidism.
Next year my marjoram will be big enough to harvest, looking forward to trying that, and I'll be growing fenugreek again. Last time my tea machine almost exploded when it got clogged with the fenugreek leaf mucous, lol, but I may try it again without the machine.
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I grow mint (chocolate mint cultivar) and lemon verbena for tea. :)
Lemon verbena is my favorite smell/flavor. Its like green-gummy-bear heaven.
Hcc
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I grow chamomile, lavender, catnip, and oregano. I haven't tried any of them in teas yet though, but I plan to soon. My chamomile flowers smell so good!! Like strawberry liquorish!
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I try every herbs in water ^^
my favourite as of now is: Spearmint, licorice, hibiscus, orangepeel, lemonpeel. -> awesome
i grow every sage I can get a grip on, many mints especially spearmint, all mentioned above, chamomilla, strawberry leaves, melissa, beech leaves ... I'll update when I get home and look into the collection, feels like something is missing.
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Huh...I didn't know that strawberry leaves could be used in tea. My plants all fruited in spring and have just been growing more foliage all summer. I think I could get a couple ounces of leaf from them at least. How does it taste?
I used to make a tea blend with .5g dried orange peel, 1g chamomile, .5g passionflower, and .3g st johns wort. I stopped making teas a while back but I recently got back into it and I've been making a tea with 1.5-1.7g of St.Johns wort everyday.
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I use Fragaria Vesca leaves that have a wide range of traditional uses, altho I dont know wich are scientifically backed and wich arent. They are all over a place I know so I always have supply.
More tea ingredients came to my mind (tea obviously :P and) leaves of blackberry, nettles, raspberry, rosehip (without seeds), currant, sunflower (no joke) and perals of rose, cornflower, violets ...
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Blackcurrant leaf tea I have and sometimes use, but only rarely.
Rosehip (R. rugosa and R. canina) I wild harvest in the woods here, but I save it for teas drunk when I'm sick.
I've tried strawberry leaf tea, still have a quart of the shredded leaf in fact :D (From an ornamental variety used as a grass alternative for lawns)
I personally didnt find much use for it, it had a nice astringency but not really in a tea-ey flavor context. In fact it tasted vaguely reminiscent of spinach with that saline but not salt flavor soluble oxalate taste.
I do eat strawberries whole, tho, I like the sepals fresh.
Also tried and not used any more is grape leaves. They taste better than strawberry leaves but clog up my tea machine.
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Whats a tea machine ? :o im so old fashioned ^^ making tea with a pot of water :D
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mint (chocolate, peppermint, and spearmint)
and im trying to score a jade tree ::)
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'Tea machine' is what I call my espresso machine, one of those cheap home types.
Its great for making tea from courser ground or simply crumbled herbs, I blast it with a cup of water, add another cup, and bingo- 2 cups of tea. I can blast each pinch of herbs 3+ times throughout a day.
For fine ground teas or medicinal teas I use a pot of water and a coffee filter in a old filter basket from a busted coffee maker.
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Does anyone add stevia leaves to their teas? Or is that not a good idea?
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Yes stevia is good if you don't mind the funky sweetness it has. Just a few leaves or it gets super sweet!
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I used to love mixing lemon balm with thyme or sage but I had to stop when it caused hypothyroidism.
Wait, I came here to say cucumber and lemon balm was my homemade tea jam, but are you saying it can cause hypothyroidism? Man I hope not.
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Lemon balm is known to inhibit the activity of thyroid stimulating hormone and it can escalate to the degree of triggering hypothyroidism symptoms, but that doesnt inherently mean it will. I drank it almost daily for years before I got chronically dry flaky skin that vanished when I quit lemon balm tea. If your a lemon balm lover, at least be sure you understand what hypothyroidism symptoms might look like. Just in case.
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Thank you so much for this. I have been drinking it almost daily since early summer, at least now Ill be looking out.
Thanks again. Looks like Ill have to go back to mints.
-Ian
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Tagetes fillifolia has a great, really sweet licorice taste. Same chemical componants as stevia/artificial sweeteners, grows like a weed being marigold family.
Ginger/galagal and chilli is my other current favorite blend.
Loquat leaf is good.
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For winter months, especially when got flu or cold:
Thymus (dried)
Mint (dried)
Lemon peel
Lemon oil
In general:
St John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum)
Silene undulata root
Valeriana officinalis (sometimes)
Heimia salicifolia (sometimes)
Salvia officinalis
Ocimum sanctum
Cnidium monnieri
Glechoma hederacea
Sanicula europaea
Rosmarinus officinalis (sometimes)
Passiflora incarnata (sometimes)
If i can find organic seeds of calea ternifolia i am very enthusiast to make it tea for nights.
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If i can find organic seeds of calea ternifolia i am very enthusiast to make it tea for nights.
It is quite nice :) Companionplants.com has some live plants of high quality. (http://companionplants.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=603)
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If its quite nice then its one of the fraudulent not-Caleas ;)
Genuine Calea is incredibly bitter with kind of a buttery taste. Most frauds are non- or only slightly bitter, and slightly peppery or minty.
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If its quite nice then its one of the fraudulent not-Caleas ;)
Genuine Calea is incredibly bitter with kind of a buttery taste. Most frauds are non- or only slightly bitter, and slightly peppery or minty.
Oh, it's definitely super bitter. I meant, it's nice as in for an effective tea for sleeping and dreaming.
What's the deal with fake calea? I thought it was just renamed from a cultural to a botanical latinization. Are there fakes? What species are the fake caleas? Now I am super interested!
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lol, ok, when you said nice tea I envisioned enjoying it with grandma before bed. Calea brews make me shiver and make noises :P
Yes there are fakes, one from somewhere in the mint family actually dominates the live Calea market and many sellers know its not Calea but sell it as Calea anyway. [...] Its not bitter (unless someone thinks all vegetables are, in which case they need a better diet). Its human toxicity is unknown, and its identity is unknown.
Down in Oz a common weed grew when someone tried to grow Calea from seed (its standard germination rate is 2%) and it got spread around as Calea for a bit as well. But in america the fraud is widespread and intentional.
The zacatechichi versus ternifolia is just a nomenclatural change among the taxonomists. They are, indeed, the same plant.
[Edited for Bubbles]
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mugwort, lemon balm, spearmint, peppermint, burdock, passionflower, valerian.
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Hey is there a tea for teenage acne?
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Camellia sinensis(black tea, green tea, ect.) and lavender. :)
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Topical or systemically working ? Gnosis ?
I guess youre joking anyways :D
AFAIK Acne and its extend highly depend on the genes, theres no tea that helps with those, but bacteria are amongst other things responsible for it getting severe, so does inflammation. And there is plenty of tea-able plants against both. Like
Cedar
Thyme
Tea
Peppermint
Many other minths and related
Calendula
Garlic
Rose
St Johns wort
most of theese would want to be put on topically, only some work systemically, like garlic.
Anti inflammatory: http://eyestrain.sabhlokcity.com/2011/12/list-of-plants-and-foodswith-anti-inflammatory-properties/ (http://eyestrain.sabhlokcity.com/2011/12/list-of-plants-and-foodswith-anti-inflammatory-properties/)
And please everyone, dont discuss activity of Calea and Calea-lookalikes or preparations :)