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[Auxin]

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.

[happyconcacti]

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 

[New Wisdom]

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!

[BubbleCat]

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.

[Sunshine]

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.

[BubbleCat]

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 and) leaves of blackberry, nettles, raspberry, rosehip (without seeds), currant, sunflower (no joke) and perals of rose, cornflower, violets ...

[Auxin]

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 (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.

[BubbleCat]

Whats a tea machine ?  im so old fashioned ^^ making tea with a pot of water

[bluespottedfrog]

mint (chocolate, peppermint, and spearmint)
and im trying to score a jade tree   

[Auxin]

'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.

[happyconcacti]

Does anyone add stevia leaves to their teas? Or is that not a good idea?

[MadPlanter]

Yes stevia is good if you don't mind the funky sweetness it has. Just a few leaves or it gets super sweet!

1 Like happyconcacti likes this.

[Ian Morris]

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. 

[Auxin]

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.

[Ian Morris]

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