I have been growing, cutting, drying and rubbing my own herbs for years. The most time-consuming part is rubbing them and cleaning out all the tiny little stems. I have found a way to beat that, for the most part - herb bags, made from coffee filters!
They are not just tea bags but culinary bags as well. I mix all my spaghetti/lasagna sauce herbs together in one bag. When I make sauce, I just toss in a bag or two. I don't have to spend hours rubbing the herbs to a fineness and picking out the little stems. I do this for soups and stew too.
I have spent hours in front of movies in the evenings, rubbing and cleaning the culinary herbs, until I started making the bags. I never did that for the tea herbs until recently, as I strained the herbal tea anyway.
They are so easy to make!
Today I am making feverfew tea bags so that my hubby can make himself a cup of feverfew tea when I am not available. We use feverfew for headaches and it works very well. It's not a pain reliever but will lift the pressure off almost immediately. It only works this well if it is fresh and pure. You can buy it at herbal stores but, like I said, the commercial mix doesn't do much for a headache. We are both very pleased by how well our own fresh, home grown works
on migraines!
It's easy to grow and very hardy. It is also a perennial and a beautiful addition to a
flower bed.
I don't bother cleaning the tea herbs, as I said, so this dried feverfew is rough. I do take out the bigger stems but don't spend a lot of time on it.
I cut each filter into thirds and trim off the round edges. I then sew together three sides and leave the fourth side open to stuff in the herb. Mine are square but you can make them round, as well.
I use a simple in and out stitch, just enough to hold it together. You can do a much faster and neater job on a sewing machine, which you may want to do if you are going to be gifting these. Since they are only for our own use, this is good enough.
We remove the bags from the tea with a spoon but you can sew a piece of string into one corner for handling.
For medicinal herb tea, it is important to bring the water to a full boil, then let the tea steep for at least five minutes, ten is even better. I can usually only wait the five minutes when I have a migraine. I know how well it works.
I brought a large pot of feverfew with me, to grow as we travel and camp. It is still doing well and surviving. When spring comes I will put it out in the sun where we are camping.
Soon I will plant some purslane seeds and take a pot of that with me, as well. I will always garden, wherever I am!
