Tea from you SFG???

Lately I have been drinking lots of herbal tea, mostly peppermint, to help calm my stomach. As I was drinking my tea this morning a thought came to me about how to grow my own tea? Are the tea leave just dried peppermint leaves? I am going to research this and let you all know what I find out. I might even experiment with this this summer.

This probably isn't the best way, but we make our sun tea with a handful of fresh mint leaves. They aren't too potent, so we always throw in a couple peppermint tea bags as well.

German Chamomile grew well in my garden. I've had very nice tea from it.  Suppose to be good for stomach issues and more-- 

http://www.nyrnaturalnews.com/article/chamomile-the-everyday-healer/

I've also pick a bunch of spearmint and apple mint leaves and placed into freezer zip lock bags to use later on.

Mint is really tough, so you might as well experiment with a few plants. As long as you keep them in pots, since they're invasive.

I put lots of apple mint and peppermint leaves in my tea and coffee last year. Well worth growing.

mschaef wrote:Lately I have been drinking lots of herbal tea, mostly peppermint, to help calm my stomach. As I was drinking my tea this morning a thought came to me about how to grow my own tea? Are the tea leave just dried peppermint leaves? I am going to research this and let you all know what I find out. I might even experiment with this this summer.

Peppermint tea is indeed just steeped peppermint leaves.

im glad to see this thread

we are going to grow a lot more herbs this year and that includes more mint  our daughter loves her mint she grew the last couple of years and we dehydrated some of it....this year we want to dehydrate more for tea and to make some mint syrups and extracts...we never have done it before but sure do want to learn how    

we are growing all of our mints in containers and have noticed that some mints will even over grow other mints....so this year they each will have their own containers/pots to grow in....

we are wanting to grow more herbs for the health benefits and to add more fresh flavors to our foods.....the bees love the flowers too.....dehydrating and preserving them is really easy.....

plus we are getting our first baby chicks in April and we are wanting to raise them as healthy and natural as possible, they will benefit from these herbs and from what I have read they too love tea!   

happy gardening
rose

Pound that mint down! I saw some chocolate mint for sale the other day, and even ... orange mint? mmm... what the heck?

Everybody should have some mint, if only to ease the digestion. Plus some mints anyway (I only know from peppermint) have aromas to die for.

Wow...thanks for all the thoughts/ comments. After reading several link from a Google search I did find out that herbal tea is just parts of herb dried out. I'm so excited to grow my own this summer!!! Have to wait a bit longer though...guess I can start looking for what type of herb I want to plant for tea...  let see peppermint of course but what variety and I need some camomile and ... 

I looked into planting flowers in my garden that would serve a dual purpose of attracting bees but also could be edible or used in tea. Below are a few I have looked up but not tried all of them. I can't remember off the top of my head but I think bee balm might need to be used with some caution or not at all with pregnant women.

Chamomile
Bee Balm
Lavender
Borage

My daughter grew a chocolate mint last year.  I didn't even think to try it for tea.  I'm a tea lover, but mint's not really my favorite.  Her plant smelled so good, though, I might just grow one to try it this year.

Wish I liked the herbal teas more because it would be fun to grow my own, but I'm more a black tea girl.