James Whitcombe
There is something quietly satisfying about filling the kettle with leaves you gathered yourself, a hundred yards from your own back door. Herbal teas are the easiest of all the country crafts to learn — no sugar thermometer, no sterilising, no complicated kit. A pair of scissors, a basket, a dark corner of the airing cupboard and a few clean jam jars will see you through. What follows is how I make them, season after season, and the small details that make the difference between a cup that tastes of summer and one that tastes of dusty hay.
What to Pick and When to Pick It
Three plants will get you started, and all three are abundant in most British gardens and lanes.
- Nettle — pick the top four to six leaves of young plants in April and May, before the flowers appear. Wear gloves, and take only from clean patches well away from roadsides and dog-walking routes.
- Mint — garden mint, spearmint or apple mint. Cut whole stems just before the plant flowers, when the oils are at their peak. Morning, after the dew has dried, is best.
- Chamomile — German chamomile is the one to grow for tea. Harvest the flower heads only, picking every few days through July and into August as each new flush opens.
Other good additions, once you have the knack, are lemon balm, sage, thyme, fennel seed, rosehip and hawthorn blossom. Always pick on a dry day, never when the plants are wet, and leave plenty behind for the bees and for next year's growth.
Drying: Warm, Dark and Patient
The single most common mistake is drying herbs in a sunny kitchen window. Light bleaches the leaves and destroys the aromatic oils, and the result is a pale, tasteless brew. What you want is a warm, dark, well-ventilated room — an airing cupboard with the door ajar, a spare bedroom with the curtains drawn, a loft in high summer. Somewhere in the region of 20–30°C is ideal.
Spread your leaves thinly on a clean tea towel, a sheet of muslin or a wire rack, and don't pile them up. Nettles and mint will be dry in three to seven days; chamomile flowers can be ready in as little as two. Turn them gently once a day.
How do you know when they're done? A leaf should crumble easily between finger and thumb, with a slight rustle, and the stem should snap rather than bend. If there's any leathery softness left in the middle, leave it another day. Any moisture trapped in the jar will turn the whole batch mouldy within a fortnight.
If you're in a hurry, a very low oven — 40°C or the lowest setting, with the door propped open — will do the job in an hour or two. But watch it closely, and don't let the leaves brown. Slow drying simply tastes better.
Storing Your Leaves in Labelled Jars
Once dry, strip the leaves from the stems and pack them into clean, dry glass jars with well-fitting lids. Fill the jars right up to the top — too much air left in the jar speeds up the loss of flavour. Then store them away from direct sunlight, in a cupboard or a dark shelf, where they'll keep their colour and scent for a year or more.
Label every jar. This sounds fussy until the third time you've brewed what you thought was lemon balm and turned out to be sage. A small square of paper with the plant name and the month and year of drying is all you need. Masking tape and a pencil work perfectly well.
Keep the jars somewhere cool and steady — a larder, a bottom cupboard, a stone shelf in a north-facing pantry. Avoid the windowsill above the radiator, however pretty the jars look there, and check them after a month or two: if you see condensation on the inside of the glass, the leaves weren't quite dry enough and you should spread them out again.
Brewing a Good Cup
Use roughly one heaped teaspoon of dried leaves per mug, or a rounded tablespoon of fresh ones. Pour on water just off the boil — about 90°C for mint and chamomile, and a full boil for nettle, which benefits from a longer, hotter steep. Cover the mug while it brews to keep the volatile oils in, and give it five minutes for flowers and seven for leaves.
Nettle on its own is grassy and faintly mineral; it's much improved with a little mint or a slice of dried orange peel. Chamomile is sweet and apple-scented and needs nothing at all. Mint is best drunk alone, or blended with lemon balm for something that tastes like a summer evening.
Simple Blends to Try
- Evening wind-down: two parts chamomile, one part lemon balm, a pinch of dried lavender flowers.
- Morning pick-me-up: two parts nettle, one part mint, a few fennel seeds.
- Winter warmer: dried thyme, sage and a little crushed rosehip, sweetened with honey.
Write down what you use on the jar label, so that when a blend works you can make it again next year.
A Word on Foraging Sensibly
Only pick plants you can identify with absolute certainty, and use a good field guide rather than guesswork. Avoid verges beside busy roads, land that may have been sprayed, and anything growing where livestock graze. Nettle is best avoided by anyone on blood-thinning medication or with kidney problems, and chamomile is related to ragwort, so anyone with a daisy-family allergy should be cautious. If you're pregnant, breastfeeding, or taking regular medicine, have a word with your pharmacist before drinking herbal teas in quantity.
Start with the three easy plants, dry them properly in that warm dark corner, and label your jars. By next spring you'll have a shelf of your own blends — and a very good reason to walk the lane with a basket.
