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Calendula petals for tea

Since I got my food dehydrator, I've been drying herbs for cooking, and also some for making herbal tea.  As I don't drink caffeine, I usually stick to herbal teas.  So far I have dried mint, peppermint, thyme, taragon, lemon grass and lemon myrtle leaves for tea.  I keep each one in a separate jar and then mix up a little of each to make a jar to take to work and I use a tea ball to brew my tea.
calendula flowers in my garden
On ingredient that I've been hoping to add to my tea is calendula, and it is finally flowering in my garden.  I have been picking the flowers and letting them air dry in a jar (as it is very dry here at the moment, I don't need to use the dehydrator).  When the petals are dry I pull them off and put them in another jar, ready to add to my tea.
drying the flowers

It does take a lot of flowers to make enough petals for tea as they really shrink when they dry, but they aren't hard to grow or dry, so I don't mind having a few in a jar until they dry.

dried petals ready for tea
There's lots of information about the benefits of calendula.  To be honest I don't know how much to believe, but it doesn't hurt to add something different to your tea!
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Comments

  1. city garden country gardenSeptember 14, 2012 at 9:10 AM

    That must create the most beautiful coloured tea! What does it taste like?

    ReplyDelete
  2. africanaussieSeptember 14, 2012 at 10:39 AM

    I have just been drying my rosellas for tea - such fun! I found the best way is to spread them out on one of those foil window shades in the back of the car! I am going to have to grow some calendula now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. EmmaSeptember 16, 2012 at 12:28 PM

    My calendula is flowering too so this looks like a fun use for it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownSeptember 28, 2012 at 6:28 AM

    oh yum, I have some Rosella tea at the moment, and I was thinking of growing some too, that's a good idea for drying them :) I usually mix the calendula with mint, lemon grass etc, so you can't really taste it or see a colour from it, just something that was in a commercial tea that I bought, so I thought I would try adding it to my homemade tea :)

    ReplyDelete

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