Making my own Tea

I usually am a coffee man myself but sometimes I really like some mint tea and my wife really drinks bucketloads of the stuff.

But we just buy the packaged tea bags from the shop like anyone else.

This weekend though I got into my urban homesteading thinking again and wanted to get a bit creative. So I decided to figure out how to make my own mint tea.

And it is actually surprisingly easy.

I have these mint plants on my balcony that have been producing a nice addition to a gin/tonic and adding a bit of flavour to sparkling water all summer. But now the temperatures are slowly (very slowly) going down

So I figured, lets raid the plants.

I looked up how to do it online and there were a few options on how to dry the leaves

• hang them in bundles in a dry dark space for a few weeks
• put them in the oven for a few hours
• put them in the microwave for a few minutes
• editet: use a dehydrator (like @goldendawne who is an authority on homesteading, so ask her how it works)

Since I do not really have the space (or the patience) to start bundling up the leaves and tie them together to hang them upside down (apparently it helps pull the flavour from the stems to the leaves) in my closet I ignored this option. If you dry a lot of herbs and have a room or space for this then this is of course another matter. (but then you do not need my advice anyway)

I did this just before preparing dinner so I did not have the time to put them in the microwave for a few seconds, turn them around and repeat the procedure. This seems easy but you have to do this a few times for 30 seconds.

So In the oven they went. I removed all the leaves from the stems, sorted out the ones that were to brown and spread everything on a baking plate with baking paper on it. The oven was preheated at 60 degrees Celcius (140 Fahrenheit) and in they went.

I left them there for about 2 hours and turned of the oven after one hour.

What came out where crispy mint leaves and an apartment that really had a fresh smell.

I might be going out later in the week to try the same with nettles, they are really good for the blood circulation and I remember the taste from when I was young at home.
It will go together well with my mint tea because that little jar is not going to last long.