Body Into Balance, With Maria Noël Groves | Tea Talks With Jiling
Jiling and Maria discuss favorite easy-to-grow herbs for a medicinal herb garden, “remedy gardens,” favorite herbs for delicious teas, increasing access for herbal classes within a for-profit business model, and more. We hope this conversation inspires your spring planting, growing, learning, and harvesting projects!
How to Make Herbal Syrups for Cocktails, Mocktails, Pancakes, & More!
Homemade simple syrups infused with dried herbs are a handy ingredient to have at the ready and as the name implies, they are incredibly easy to make! If you can boil water, you can make simple syrup. Herb-infused syrups can be added to carbonated water, brushed on cakes, drizzled on yogurt or pancakes, and, of course, added to mocktails! They are also a great way to take herbs without the use of alcohol and are especially great for getting kids to willfully add healthy ingredients to their diet.
Herb-Infused Simple Syrup Recipe Using Dried Herbs
Simple syrups are a fun and surprisingly useful ingredient to keep on hand in your refrigerator, especially when they are infused with your favorite herbs. A lot of people think of mocktails or cocktails when they think of simple syrups, and that’s definitely a good use for them. But they are equally wonderful added to carbonated water, as sweetener in tea, brushed on cakes or cupcakes, drizzled on yogurt or pancakes, and more. They are called “simple” syrup for a reason—if you can boil water, you can make simple syrup. And infusing simple syrups with herbs takes them from being a good ingredient to an amazing one!
Interviews On Herbal Radio With Thomas Dick | Featuring Rosemary Gladstar
We hope you enjoy this week’s episode as we chat about Rosemary’s upbringing, the importance of bringing community together towards action, her current favorite simple tea blend (listed below), and so much more.
How to Make Herb-Flavored Alcohol + 3 DIY Herbal Spirit Blends
In the cycle of the year, I find the weeks between Imbolc (February) and Beltane (end of April) to be a precious, restful time in which I finally have space to be creative. We’re past the months of food preserving and winter holidays and not yet at the point when I will jump back into the annual joy/work of my yard, garden, and orchard. This is the only time of the year when I don’t have a dozen other priorities vying for my attention. It is an ideal moment to take a look at my apothecary and think about the herbs that I should use up before they start to get old. As well as making tinctures, glycerine extracts, and infused honey, I find this to be a perfect opportunity to make herb-infused spirits to add to my liquor cabinet for handcrafted cocktails throughout the year. I recently combed back through Mountain Rose Herbs blogs for inspiration, and—as usual—came up with infusion gold. I’m excited to share three reader-tested, herb-infused distilled spirits recipes with you!
Herb-Infused Spirits & Herbal Cocktail Ideas
Herb-Infused distilled spirits show up in the finest, most delicious cocktails, but can be prohibitively expensive when you want to purchase a bottle for your home liquor cabinet. Fortunately, infused spirits are also some of the easiest herbal formulations to make! All you need is alcohol, herbs of choice, and jars and bottles for infusing and storing. In a matter of days, you can stock your bar with a wide variety of different flavors to take your cocktail creations to the next level throughout the year. Also, herb-infused spirits are a great way to use up herbs in your home apothecary before they get old. We’ve got three time-tested recipes to get you started—roasted cacao and vanilla bean brandy, smoked peppercorn vodka, and lavender gin. Yum, perfection in a bottle!
What Is a Cold Infusion + Herbs to Cold Infuse
Infusions are an enjoyable method for savoring and receiving the benefits of herbs. Also referred to simply as tea, an herbal infusion is technically called a tisane and involves steeping fresh or dried herbs in water for a period of time. The water used for an infusion can be hot or cold depending on the herbs you use and the effect you desire, as well as your preference and mood. In this blog, we are going to focus on what a cold infusion is, what herbs work best with this method, and how to make a cold infusion.
A cold infusion is a method for making a tisane using room temperature water rather than hot. There are several instances where a cold infusion might be preferred over a cup of steaming hot tea. Due to the gentle nature of the cold infusion method, it is ideal for aromatic plants whose volatile constituents would otherwise be damaged by heat. Additionally, some herbs contain plant constituents that are best extracted at room temperature to draw the most benefits out of the plant material. There are also plant constituents, such as bitter compounds, that you may not want in a cup of tea. These constituents aren’t readily dissolved by cool water, so can make for a more pleasurable brew. Lastly, you may want a cold infusion for sheer enjoyment. There’s nothing more fun or delicious than picking fresh herbs from the garden on a sunny day and letting them infuse in the natural warmth. It’s a summertime ritual at our house.
Guide to Green Tea: How to Determine Quality and Flavor Expectations
Green tea is one of the most popular beverages in the world. On average, 600,000 tons are consumed each year! It is predominantly enjoyed in China, Japan, and surrounding countries where many cups are poured throughout the day. Pretty remarkable for one plant, right?
In the western world, it is common to see green tea listed on a menu, but rarely do we specify the type of tea or where it’s from. These factors play a huge role in its flavor and aroma yet are often left out of the description. Similar to wines, there is a wide array of flavor profiles found in green tea—imagine if everywhere you went wines were only listed as white or red; how would you know what to choose? And if you enjoyed it, how could you find it again? In this blog, I’m going to talk about some different types of green tea and what makes them so unique.
Interviews On Herbal Radio With Thomas Dick | Featuring Jiling Lin
Thomas sat down with our good friend and talented herbalist, Jiling Lin, over Zoom this past fall to get to know her a little better. We’ve had the great fortune of partnering with Jiling on numerous projects including filming instructional videos, writing poetic blogs and journal articles, emceeing Free Herbalism Projects, and of course hosting Tea Talks on Herbal Radio. We’re so grateful for the opportunity to get to know Jiling even more as Thomas and Jiling chat about her upbringing, the sharing of plants and stories, and the pivotal herbal plot points in her life. We hope you enjoy our conversation with Jiling as much as we did!
Nourishing Herbal Infusion Recipe—A Tea With Purpose
When it comes to nutritive plants like these four treasured herbal allies, opting for the infusion method will impart your water-based brew with the full strength of the plant material. Certainly, you could steep these herbs in a tea bag for 10-15 minutes. However, you’ll receive exponentially more of the nutritive and tonifying benefits with the infusion method, which employs a hefty volume of herbs steeped for hours. This allows more of the minerals, chlorophyll, and other nutrients to be pulled into the solution.
Think of it this way: Infusions pull more of the power-packed punch out of your dried herbs. Brewing your herbs this way gives you a strong, nourishing brew—deep and rich in color, flavor, and constituents. Just the way you like it.
