What is an herbal infusion?
An infusion or herbal infusion is a hot aqueous extract of herbs or plant parts. In common parlance, this is sometimes called herbal tea, but this is actually not correct. The term 'tea' may officially only be used for aqueous extracts of the Camellia Sinensis plant (green tea, white tea, oolong tea, black tea and red tea). If we are talking about chamomile tea, this is therefore not correct. It is more accurate to refer to it as a chamomile infusion.
There are 3 ways to steep a plant/herb in water: a macerate, an infusion or a decoction. A macerate is an extract of an herb in cold water. A decoction is an extract by boiling herbs. Here I will limit myself to making infusions.
How much herbs per cup/teapot?
This question is difficult to answer definitively. As a guideline, you can use 1 coffee spoon of dried herb (for roots and seeds a level coffee spoon, for leaves, stems and flowers a heaping coffee spoon) per 25cl water. However, this is not an exact science, trust your intuition and don't hesitate to experiment. Often we tend to use too much rather than too little herb. You can also always extend the steeping time so you need less of an herb.
Water temperature
An herbal infusion is usually made with water of 90 to 95 degrees. If you don't have a tea thermometer handy, you can bring the water to a boil and then let it stand for 1 minute. That way your water will have the ideal temperature. There are also tea kettles for tea with which you can set the correct temperature. Note: different water temperatures apply to tea types of the Camellia Sinensis plant. More on that later in another blog post.
What is the steeping time of an infusion?
Usually this depends on the plant part used. The softer parts (flowers, leaves) release their active ingredients more easily than the harder parts (such as roots or bark) and therefore need less steeping time. In most herbal books, the following steeping times are used as a guideline:
5 minutes: flowers
10 minutes: leaves and stems
15 minutes: roots, seeds, bark
When you drink an infusion mainly for the taste and aroma, you can keep the steeping time relatively short. When you also consume an infusion for medicinal reasons, it is often more effective to let the infusion steep a little longer. The longer you steep an herb, the more the bitter substances are also released. Although this is not always equally palatable for everyone, bitter substances are often very beneficial for our health.
Pouring water over the herbs
Place the herbs in a teapot or cup, pour the water over them and let the tea steep for as long as necessary. You can place the herbs loose in the teapot or use a tea filter (available in paper, metal, plastic, rattan...) that you can place in your teapot or cup and in which you can steep the herbs. If you opt for this option, make sure the herbs have enough room to release their active ingredients.
At 't Lof der Kruiden we are quite fond of glass teapots and tea glasses because of the visual aspect. We love to see the leaves and flowers floating around in the water and watch the color of the water change. By the way, you can find all our accessories for making an infusion via Accessories.
When the infusion has steeped long enough, it's time to smell, taste and enjoy.
To your health!
Robin