Tea time, Dr. Feel Good?

[Hershell]

When are leaves mature enough to harvest for tea and could you give us a refresher coarse on your famous tea recipe? Talk about great tea and treats. You'll never know till you visit Frank! Was is sweet potato pie? Oh man

[Harborseal]

That's the truth!

[Hershell]

Someone in that family can cook!

[FMD]

Thanks guys. We've already had the first batch of fig tea this year, from the alma twins. Next up are the Celestes. The leaves are perfect now but soon dreaded rust will start. No one likes fungus in their tea.
To give the tea an extra boost, we like to brew some lemon grass with the fig leaves. Figalicious!!

[Hershell]

My lemon grass is doing swell.

[FMD]

Hershell, have you had a chance of trying the lemon grass-fig leaf combo yet?

[Hershell]

Yes. I haven't got it down to a science yet but I like the taste.

[FMD]

Here is this morning's batch. I am going to try and dry them in this black bin in the sun.

[Darkman]

What about all the latex?

Why don't you use a food dehydrator?

[Hershell]

Do you think the moisture can evaporate fast enough in the bin?

[FMD]

Ill need to aerate them a few times but the heat from the black bin should do the job. We shall see.

[WillsC]

I will have to try it. So once they are dry how much leaf to how much water and how long to steep?

[FMD]

Wills, it was a trial and error thing with me. I didnt like it too strong so I ended up using smaller amounts. Now we make large batches for ice tea,

[Harborseal]

What's the right fig leaf to lemongrass ratio? Do you add lemon peel as well?

[FMD]

Again, it is more of trial and error and personal preference. 50/50 is not a bad mix, Bob.

[FMD]

The black bin in the sun worked pretty well! I am going to try drying some almas et al in the same manner when the time comes.

[drphil69]

Do you find different fig leaves make different tasting tea? Or leaves from different seasons, etc?

I tried to make some last year with HC leaves, and I could not get past the smell. One sip and I threw it out.

[FMD]

There are differences in how the teas taste among the different varieties and leaf maturity, but none have been bad to my palate.

[Charitup]

Glad you started this Hershell. I had thought I would try some fig leaf tea this year and had not thought a thing about it until seeing this. I will be out picking some leaves tomorrow.

[drphil69]

You have leaves to spare already in GA? Man, I'm in 7A (Delaware) and mine are just starting to leaf out. I got to move south!

[Charitup]

Yes I have several Celeste I can get enough leaves off of. Some varieties just starting to put out here to.

[eboone]

Last fall I started making some fig leaf iced teas based on posts I read on some other forum. As a new grower I was rather short on leaves until late fall when I started harvesting all the leaves just before frost hit.

I made the iced tea in several different ways. I found two recipes I liked - one with added spearmint leaves, one with a single black teabag per pitcher plus the spearmint leaves. I don't like to add sugar. I'll try the lemon grass recipe this year also

I need to find a very large 'tea ball', the metal case to put the dried leaves in to pour the boiling water over.

[Hershell]

I brew it like coffee and then add ice. A cup at the time in my little coffee brewer.

[Hershell]

The weekend haul. It smells good to me. Must be a fig thing.

[m5allen]

Looks good Hershell. When I make mine, I take the dried leaves and rub them in between my hands. I find that the tea doesn't taste very strong unless the leaves are "ground up" into fine pieces.

[rusty hooks]

Great....something else to encourage my fig addiction.........directly into the system

[cis4elk]

I'm still not a big fan of green fig leave tea. It tastes too much like..grass, for me anyway. I collect the leaves as they drop from trees, only the yellow and tan ones with no chlorophyll left. I don't know maybe a early season green leaf tastes better, but like mentioned above my trees need their leaves more than I do, I'll get them when they are done using them.

[eboone]

Calvin, for those of us in shorter season growing areas it might be detrimental to take off a lot of leaves. But if you have a lot of trees, taking a leaf off a couple at a time might not be bad. And last fall I picked a lot of leaves before they died on trees that did not have figs yet (or that were done bearing)

[Hershell]

I'm not a green tea fan eather but fig tea is pretty good and it's almost free if you don't figure what I've spent on figs. I have a huge Celeste tree so picking leaves isn't an issue. If someone wanted leaves it probably wouldn't be difficult to get some from someone that had more than enough. When dry they would be cheap to package and mail.

[WillsC]

By my calculations each cup of tea will cost you about $47 Hershell.

[Hershell]

But at that price I would have to drink a lot of cups of tea. Did you factor in that I would live that long. I take it that your not going to tell Marie about the cost.

[WillsC]

Now that I know she knew about all of the purchases it takes away my ability to blackmail you.

[Taverna78]

Wow! At $47 per cup you can package it and list on eBay under Rare Dall'Osso tea Ha!
If you really want to make a "Groovey" addition to your tea throw in a few angel trumpet flowers to the boil. Haha! And hold on to your red shoes dorthy Kansas and toto going by by...
It's true but I not suggest you try it really. Is bad news

[Darkman]

Yeo could get a trip to the ER or even the Morque!

[Taverna78]

Sì I read that as well. Is just plain stupid to chance that. But I also see people that do thing much dumber.

[Hershell]

That's ok Fabio. I'll take your word for it, I promis

[Taverna78]

I never try it but I read teenagers take trumpet and boil to a tea and they hallucinate but is a deadly poison if too much added. I would never do