Calendula petals for tea

Sep 14, 2012by Farmer Liz

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!