Campus Dining

Herbal teas are a fun, easy, and kid friendly project that you can do in your garden all year round!

First, find out what you’re growing that will make a good tea. Some of our favorites include:

• Basil
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Mint
• Lemongrass
• Hibiscus
• Chamomile
• Fennel
• Rosehip
• And so many more! Google is your friend for finding new varieties of herbs to try!

In this tutorial, we’ll take you through the process of making hibiscus and chocolate mint tea using Roselle hibiscus fruit and mint leaves.

Step 1: Harvest your herbs! When you’re drying any herbs or fruit, you want to pick and then immediately dry them as fresh as possible for the best flavor and health benefits.

(fresh harvested Chocolate Mint and Roselle Hibiscus fruit)

Step 2: Wash everything thoroughly. We don’t want any dirt, insects, or chemicals in our tea!

These Roselle fruit are not freshly harvested, and you can tell the color difference!

Step 3: Separate the calyxes from the seeds, or in the case of the mint or other leafy herbs, the leaves from the stems. If you are making tea with edible flowers, separate the flower petals.

Step 4: A food dehydrator works best for this step. If you have one, place your herbs on the drying trays and set the temperature and time to what your manual recommends. I did 135 degrees for about 4-5 hours for the roselle, and about 3 hours for the mint. Check on the herbs occasionally to make sure they aren’t over-cooking or burning.

If you don’t have a food dehydrator, you can dry your herbs in the oven. Set your oven to it’s lowest temperature (mine is 200 degrees) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scatter your herbs on the baking sheet and dry in the oven for a few hours, checking every half hour to make sure things are drying evenly.  This method requires a little more babying to make sure they don’t burn.

Step 5: Mix and match your dried herbs to create your desired teas! You can store your teas in cute little glass jars, airtight containers or bags, or make your own tea sachets. Have fun!

Here’s a glass of iced Roselle hibiscus tea I made using these dried calyxes. Look at that color!

If you make herbal tea using this method, show us your final product on Instagram or Facebook, or email us at community.garden@auburn.edu!