Making your own tea blends at home is a fun way to grow your apothecary skills and apothecary space. Being able to blend your own herbs for specific needs is such a beautiful skill to acquire. Making your own tea to use medicinally, for taste, to give to friends on holidays and birthdays- there is a million reasons to learn this skill. In this blog we will discuss all the equipment needed, my favorites recipe blends and so much more. Let’s learn how to make your own tea blends at home!
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How to Make Your Own Tea Blends at Home
There is many types of tea making and many methods to getting a finished product. First let’s discuss the different types of bases and types of tea blends.
Tea Bases & Types
Each tea can be put in a subcategory based on the base herbs in the tea. Just like every house has a foundation, generally all teas have a foundation as well.
Just like a cake can be flavored in multiple ways but the base ingredients will always be flour and sugar, tea is the same.
Here are the main bases: black, green, oolong, white and none.
A lot of people choose different bases based solely on their personal preferences for flavor.
Oolong is a mix of both black and green teas, whereas white tea is from the same plant with simply less flavor, and no base is generally otherwise known as herbal tea, which will be what you use most the time if you are doing this for medicinal reasons!
Today we will focus mostly on herbal teas which will have no base!
Tea Brewing and Blending Equipment
The equipment list for making tea is fairly small but each one is important to having a fully functioning tea shop. Let’s go through the list
- Mortar and pestle
- Mixing Spoons or Whisk
- Stainless steel or glass bowl set
- Measuring Spoons
- Digital Food Scale
- Tea Bags
- Tea Infusers and Balls
- Tea Kettle (here’s one w/out stove top required)
- Tea Pots- Regular & Built-in Infuser
- Jars for Bulk Storage
- & Labels
This is not an exhausted list of all the goods you can acquire to make tea from home but this is a list of the foundational products to your home apothecary with tea making and blending.
Now that we have the knowledge on gases and equipment let’s dive into herbal tea blending!
Health Benefits & Basic Herbal Tea Knowledge
Drinking herbal tea has many health benefits. Blending and brewing your own teas at home extends the list of benefits. From freshness to antioxidants, vitamins, immune boosting, minerals, and no added ingredients that hold a mysterious label like “natural flavors”. Home teas are the best option for optimal health benefits.
The quality of herbs, the specificity of ingredient ratio, there truly is no better option!
Herbal Tea Types & Varieties
You have most definitely had an herbal tea before, such as rose hips, raspberry leaf or chamomile. Each one for different health benefits.
Here are a few more examples: peppermint, immunity blends, detox blends, elderberry tea, pine/spruce, spearmint, fruit flavors, anise, saffron, and dandelion.
Each flower, herb and fruit provide different nutrients, minerals, vitamins and antioxidants.
Blending Herbal Teas
Now let’s learn how to make your own tea blends at home!
Again, we are sticking primarily with herbal teas, though you can blend black, oolong, white and green easily. The base herb you choose should make up 50-70% of the blend, which can be adjusted for your taste preference.
Black tea: is the strongest in flavor.
Green tea: lighter flavor
White: subtle and light
Oolong: oolong is a blend of both green and black and therefore the body and flavor is dependent on the ratio of black to green tea leaves.
Each base is generally known to pair well with certain herbs, white is generally paired with citrus flavors. Black is paired well with many herbs and fruits and often has added caffeine if you are looking to add caffeine in your homemade tea. Testing different methods will let you know your favorite mixes!
Adding Herbs to Your Base
Homemade herbal teas often have 1-5 ingredients. If the tea is for healing it generally contains more herbs. If the tea is for flavor it may contain lower number of herbs and ingredients.
To dive in deeper, full-bodied teas, like black, blend well with bold flavors like peach whereas lighter-bodied teas, like white, baseless or green, are best paired with more delicate flavors like rose.
For a well rounded tea no matter the type, having elements of each of these categories is recommended: herbal, floral, spice and fruit flavors. Though this is not recommended if you have a specific flavor profile in mind.
The final ingredient that adds finishing touches to the blend is one that adds an accent flavor. This is a good place to include spices like cinnamon, turmeric or ginger! For lighter blends bright citrus or fruity flavors to add a pop of acidity, or something very aromatic or floral like spruce tips or lavender.
Blending Baseless Herbal Teas
First, if you need a small kit of dried herbs you can find one here! You will notice below that the recipes call for large amounts of each herb, though as long as you keep the ratio, you can use any amount you have access to!
Now let’s discuss the one tea we are going to dive in deep with: baseless herbal teas. These teas are specific to remedy over flavor. This type of tea will generally include more ingredients than a tea that has a base and leans towards flavor combinations in addition to medicinal value.
Some herbal blends can include five-ten ingredients for specific needs. The point of these teas is to target specific needs like: healing your body after birth, digestion issues, sleep, brain fog, certain diseases, and sickness as well as prevention.
Herbal teas can also follow a specific category. A favorite of mine is our garden floral blend, which, though has many medicinal purposes and qualities, follows that specific criteria of edible florals: lilacs, lavenders, chamomile, blue buttons, dandelion and more. This will target a wide range of benefits for different things.
Garden blend in general contains leaves of different plants as well!
Herbal blends that are the extremely specific teas for immunity, digestion, hormones and more.
This is often why apothecary’s are often associated with witches, because we see them mixing elixirs and that is most defined Ty the idea behind herbal blends.
As the crafter of a herbal blend your main goal is to know the problem you are targeting, to find the herbs that aid and heal this issue, mix them together based on your knowledge of each herb, to them brew to strength and take as medicine.
Now that we have understanding of this let’s dive into a few recipes and how to determine brewing amount and strength.
You May Also Like: 11 Must Have’s for your at Home Apothecary
Soothing Sleep Tea
The purpose of this tea blend is to find and blend herbs that have generally been used and found to aid with better sleep quality.
Ingredients
1 cup dried chamomile
½ cup dried lemon balm
¼ cup dried rose petals
1 tablespoon dried lavender
Directions
- Place all ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Gently mix with two large spoon until all of the herbs are combined equally.
- Store in an air-tight container for up to one year.
- To use, steep around 1 tablespoon of dried herbs in one cup of boiling water. Steep before drinking by immediately covering, and letting it sit for 5-15 minutes before uncovering and drinking.
Immune Boosting Tea
The purpose of this blend is to take before and during a sick spell. These herbs are known historically for healing sickness and boosting the immune system.
Ingredients
1 cup dried elderberries
1 cup rosehips
¼ cup cinnamon chips
¼ cup ginger root
Directions
- Place all ingredients in a medium sized bowl.
Gently mix with two large spoon until all of the herbs are combined equally. - Store in an air-tight container for up to one year.
- To use, steep around 1 tablespoon of dried herbs in one cup of boiling water. Steep before drinking by immediately covering, and letting it sit for 5-15 minutes before uncovering and drinking.
Learning quantity of tea and length of steeping:
In the above recipes you will see a very specific amount of tea in quantity and a somewhat vague time for steeping. These truly depend on the strength you desire for your tea and the strength of the herbs in the blend.
Doing research on the herbs you use will allow you to better understand how much of each should be consumed via tea and will help you with the amount you should use for each cup of tea. I tend to add more tea (around 1.5 tbsp) to my cup, though some do not recommend this with all herbs.
Secondly, is steep time. This enhances the strength of your tea and consequently/theoretically the healing powers it can offer. Five minutes is the minimum for steeping when brewing for medicinal effects.
Fifteen minutes will provide a very strong flavor but will guarantee that you pull all the nutrients out of the tea.
Depending on the use of the tea and for whatever specific ailment you can decide what strength is required. You may find recipes online that will provide you a sweet spot based on their experience with herbal remedies and tea making.
With that,
thank you so much for reading how to make tea blends at home! If you have any comments or questions let us know in the comments or send us an email!
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