How to make fireweed tea

Tweet

In recent years we make fireweed tea every July so that we can add it to the tea leaves in winter. Fireweed tea (Brit. rosebay willowherb) contains lots of healthy characteristics, you can google them. There are 4 main steps for making fireweed tea: 1. Withering Clean fireweed leaves are put on the floor in the dark room for several days. You should flip them several times a day to avoid complete drying. 2. Grinding You use meat grinder to "pulverize" the leaves. We don't use electro grinder because it may be broken while grinding. The first time we used only our hands and rubbed the green between our hands, that is also possible by the way. The problem is having calluses later. 3. Fermentation The most important part of making the tea. You put the grinded leaves into the bowl and add a plate with something heavy, for example, a jar of water on top of it. The pressure should't be very high. Keep the bowl with some pressure for several days in a warm place. 4. Drying You take the leaves, put them onto the baking sheet 1 cm thick and place it into the oven for 1 hour 100C heat. 5. Profit! Free tea during winter season. Actually all the process is not so easy, you have to spend 2 hours only with picking up the fireweed to get 300-400g of tea. Our jar of tea is picture 4. Have a nice teaparty!