Mia Lane
A freshly brewed fruit tea smells and tastes seductively fruity. Depending on the season, it can also warm you up from the inside or quench your thirst as an iced tea. Have you ever thought about making your own fruit tea? It’s easy to do and usually tastes better than store-bought tea.
Fruit tea tastes great in winter as a warming hot drink – and in summer as a refreshing thirst quencher. While children often eye herbal tea with suspicion, little ones usually taste good with fruit tea. And that’s a good thing, because tea, along with water, can ensure adequate hydration. The optimal amount to drink varies depending on age, energy expenditure and state of health, but for adults it can be 1.5 liters a day.
Make fruit tea yourself: These ingredients are suitable
If you prefer to avoid pesticides and also want to save on packaging waste, simply make your own fruit tea. You can often even use fruit bowls and thus continue to use food leftovers instead of throwing them away. Another advantage: You can create your very own favorite tea variation and only use organic ingredients.
The following types of fruit are well suited for homemade fruit tea:
- Apple
- All berries such as blackberries, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries
- pear
- pomegranate
- rose hip
- elder
- kiwi
- lime
- mango
- orange
- lemon
Important: You can not only prepare tea from the fruit itself, but also from the peel. This allows you to reuse lemon peel or orange peel, for example.
Important preparation: drying the fruit
Whether you use the fruit or its peel: In both cases, you must dry the fruit beforehand. To do this, cut the fruit and peel into small pieces and place them on a baking tray that you have covered with baking paper or a baking mat. Now place the pieces of fruit in the oven at 40 degrees for five to six hours. To allow the moisture to escape, stick a cooking spoon in the oven door. Then let the fruit dry for another two hours in a sunny, warm place.
To be absolutely sure the fruit is completely dry, leave overnight covered with a cotton cloth, mix up the next day, and then pour into clean jars or mason jars.
If the oven method consumes too much energy for you, you can also let the fruit bowls air dry. The best way to do this is to place the shells on a baking tray with sufficient spacing and place it in a room with low humidity. With this method, however, it can take two to three days for the fruit to dry completely.
For your fruit tea, brew one to two teaspoons of the dried fruit per cup of tea in a tea strainer, tea egg or tea bag.
Make fruit tea yourself: tips for preparation and recipe ideas
You can mix your fruit tea according to your preferences and, for example, prepare an apple-orange tea or an exotic kiwi-mango tea.
For a fruit tea made from orange or lemon peel, pour hot water over fresh or dried orange peel and let it steep for about ten minutes. For a pot of tea you can use the peel of an organic orange or organic lemon.
Dried herbs are a great addition to fruit tea: You can either dry the leaves of peppermint, lemon balm or nettle yourself in bundles or buy them already dried. Add about a teaspoon of the herbs to the dried fruit and enjoy your healthy fruit tea blend.
Make sure the fruit is organic and wash the skins thoroughly with water. A fair trade seal is recommended for purchased herbs.
Always pour boiling water over your tea mixture and cover the teacup while the tea is steeping. This keeps the aroma in the cup.
Always keep your fruit tea tightly closed and protected from light as much as possible. This way the aroma of the fruit lasts longer.
Tip: A homemade tea blend is always a nice DIY gift that you can surprise your loved ones with.
