Making
tea
An herbal infusion is perhaps the simplest preparation
(aside from eating the plant raw) you can make. It involves either
fresh or dry herbs, good quality spring or well water, a pot with
a lid (or a mason jar with lid) and a strainer. Infusions work well
for delicate herbal parts: leaves and flowers, usually. You can
use any amount of herb you wish, from 2 Tablespoons (dry) per quart
of water for a beverage tea, to ½ cup (dry) per quart for
a medicinal brew. Use twice these amounts for fresh herb infusions.
For a hot infusion: First, set your water to boil.
Then, take the herbs (fresh or dry), remove the stems and any discolored
leaves, chop the herbs coarsely, and put them in the pot. Once the
water has reached a boil, remove it from the heat immediately and
pour it over the herbs. Cover, and let the infusion steep for at
least 30 minutes. You can leave it much longer (24 hours) if you
wish. After it is done steeping, strain and serve. Teas will usually
not keep for longer than 24 hours after straining.
For a cold infusion: First chop your herbs, fresh
or dry. Place them in a pot or a mason jar, and pour cold spring
or well water over them. Stir the herbs in well. Cover, and let
steep for 24 hours. This provides a wonderfully delicate tea, subtle
in flavor and rich in volatile constituents like essential oils.
Good for herbs like Peppermint, Spearmint, Chamomile, Fennel, Marshmallow.
The basic idea of a cold infusion is to extract the medicinal qualities
of the herbs without damaging them with heat.
Compresses
are external applications of hot herbal infusions. Basically, you
will prepare a hot infusion and soak a clean cloth or bandage in
it. Apply the cloth, while still warm but not scalding (test on
the back of your hand) to the affected area. Compresses are particularly
good for sprains, strains, and bruises (alternate compress with
ice in these cases); rashes; or as an aid in detoxification (like
a Peppermint compress applied to the chest during a bad cold or
flu). Leave the compress on for 5-10 minutes, or until it cools
down, then warm up the infusion and re-soak the rag, applying it
for another 5-10 minutes. You can keep repeating this process until
all the infusion is gone.
An herbal decoction is a preparation usually reserved
for the tougher plant parts, like roots, seeds, or barks. Like an
infusion, it requires, in addition to the herbal material, good
spring or well water (solvent), a flame-resistant pot with a lid,
and a strainer. Decoctions usually require a little less herbal
material than infusions, both because the herbs you’re using
can be more concentrated in medicinal power and because they weigh
more (are denser). For a powerful brew, use between ¼ and
½ cup of roots or bark per quart of water; slightly under
¼ cup of seeds per quart of water (the seeds are by far the
most concentrated part of a plant, and so require less).
Fill your pot with cold water, then add the herbs and cover it.
Set the pot on a gentle heat, enough to bring the decoction to a
simmer in about 10 minutes. Continue simmering for at least another
10 minutes, or at most 30 minutes. Remove from the heat, strain
into a teapot or mason jar, and cover. That’s all there is
to it!
Decoctions can be simmered longer and reduced so that you’re
left with less liquid than you started with. For example, a 2:1
reduction would mean that you had twice as much liquid to begin
with than in the final decoction, once it’s strained. For
example: take 2 quarts ( ½ gallon) of water, and add 1 cup
of dry Astragalus root. Bring it all slowly to a simmer in a covered
pot, then allow the decoction to simmer for another hour on very
gentle heat until there is only 1 quart of liquid left in the pot
(you can approximate this by eyeing the water level over the Astragalus
root).
Decoctions prepared by reduction are strong, concentrated brews.
In practice, it is rarely useful to reduce the tea beyond a 2:1
ratio, as the amount of water left isn’t enough to keep all
the good stuff in solution anymore, and it precipitates out of the
decoction.
Complex (multi-part) teas
Sometimes you will develop a tea formula that involves both delicate
herbal parts (leaves and flowers), and the tougher parts (roots,
barks and seeds). This can be a blend of multiple herbs (like a
Dandelion root / Nettle leaf / Red Clover flower blend) or a ‘whole-plant’
tea (Echinacea root and Echinacea leaves, for example). You will
want to ensure that the tougher parts are extracted properly, but
also safeguard the more tender leaves and flowers from damage due
to excessive heat. The easiest way to do this is to combine decoction
and infusion techniques in a two-step process. As with any tea,
you will need your herbs, good spring or well water, a strainer,
a flame-resistant pot with lid, and a mason jar (or teapot) with
lid.
Begin with all your herbs, individually, measured out in the correct
proportions (according to your tea formula). Determine what parts
would be best extracted by decoction, and place these herbs in the
pot, covered with cold water. Usually you will use a little less
than in a standard decoction (because more herbs will be added later),
so ¼ cup or less per quart of water should do. Slowly bring
the pot to a simmer, with the lid on, as per your standard decoction.
Simmer this for 10 minutes or so.
Meanwhile, take the remaining herbs for your formula (the more delicate
parts – again probably ¼ cup or less), and place them
in the teapot or mason jar. When the decoction phase is done simmering,
let it relax for a few minutes and then strain it into the mason
jar or teapot, so the hot decoction covers the herbs and begins
the second phase, the infusion. You can let this steep as long as
you want (30 minutes to 24 hours); some herbalists like to just
pour the whole decoction right into the jar without straining it,
to let the roots and barks steep even longer. This is fine. When
you feel extraction is complete, strain the whole tea and enjoy!
A couple of notes: we use less in each phase of multi-part extraction
because we want to avoid saturating the tea with the tougher herbs,
leaving no room for the more delicate parts to infuse into. Also,
cold infusions are not usually done in multi-part teas, again because
cold water doesn’t extract as completely as warm water does,
and you would get little of the more tender parts by attempting
to cold-infuse them into a brewed decoction.
