Herbal Tea Time, Part Two!

Here are the elusive teabags that I couldn't find yesterday! The herbal husband actually asked the key question that turned on my herbal lightbulb. I came out of the darkness into the light. Blessings on the herbal husband!

The other day I tested a couple different "blends", the first had everything but the kitchen sink and it was overwhelming. It had eight herbs. It was way too many. Then I tried five herbs and that worked very well. So Lemon Verbena Lady's Lemon Herbal Tea blend is:

1 to 2 parts lemon verbena

1 part lemon grass

1 leaf lemon basil

1/2 leaf mint marigold

1/2 leaf stevia

Being an herbal tea novice, I experimented with using the food processor to chop the dried lemon verbena. Bad idea! The midrib of lemon verbena is like the midrib on a bay leaf, very tough. It doesn't break down easily. So I took about 4 whole leaves of lemon verbena, 2 or 3 pieces of lemon grass, 1 leaf of lemon basil, 1/2 leaf of mint marigold and 1/2 leaf of stevia. You have to play around until you get the right combination for you. This is in an individual teabag recipe. They have bigger ones for teapots that would take more herbs. If the small bag is for one, the larger one is for two or three servings. You need to crush the bag slightly to help the flavor disburse. Pour boiling water over the bag and steep 3 to 5 minutes for the individual bag. I did 4 minutes and it seemed to work perfectly.

I bought the teabags in the picture a long time ago. I checked online at the San Francisco Herb Company site and found all kinds of self sealing tea bags and other products. I think you will find their site helpful. They even have potpourri recipes. In the picture below are the teabags, as they were finished. I found the sachet bags in the photo underneath at Well-Sweep Herb Farm in New Jersey. I think they will make ideal gift bags for my herbal tea blends. More tea blend ideas to come!