Get the Most Out of Your Herbs
It is important to know the proper techniques to effectively prepare herbal tea
In this post we are going to focus on 2 different methods – steeping vs infusing
As you can see there is a huge difference, even visually, between steeping and infusing herbs.
For this demonstration I created a Nettle tea using 1/4cup dried Nettles from Light Cellar with 1L of hot water
The steeping process is simply letting your herbs sit in hot water for a few minutes, like how we do when we typically use a tea bag – they’re in and they’re out…
And for this experiment I left them in for 20min to give the herbs lots of time to steep and then took a picture.
Next I left that same 1/4cup of Nettles in the same 1L of hot water overnight, in this case it was about 15hrs, and you can SEE the difference… And if you were to taste the tea, you would taste & feel the difference too!
Letting it sit overnight is the technique of creating what’s called an infusion.
An infusion is a longer period of time and generally with a larger amount of herb.
With an infusion you are able to deeply extract more of the nutritive and herbal properties of the plant versus just steeping.
Knowing this technique might just take your elixir crafting, and therefore health, to the next level.
In the next post I’ll cover decoctions – a 3rd method for creating herbal teas.
I’ll be covering all this and more in my upcoming Elixir Crafting workshop Elixir Life LIVE happening @lightcellar
#elixirlife
