Make a Refreshing Herbal Sun Tea

If you like making sun tea, you’ll love making an herbal tisane with herbs from your own garden — or someone else’s! This is a simple recipe, easily adaptable to whatever fresh (or dried) herbs you have on hand. I’ll give you some ideas on herbs that are great to use and share my recipe, but use your imagination and see what tasty combinations you can come up with too — that’s half the fun.

What Is a Tisane?

Just in case you haven’t heard of the word tisane, it is simply water infused with plant material that is not made from the true tea leaf called Camellia sinensis (black, green, white, oolong, etc.). Most people refer to a tisane simply as “herbal tea.”

Herbs for Tisanes

If you like to grow herbs, you probably have several types in your garden that would make a refreshing tea. Here’s a few to try: lemon balm, lemon thyme, lemon verbena, lavender, mint, bergamot (bee balm), lemon grass, chamomile, and pineapple sage.

For my recipe, I used  lemon balm, lemon thyme, lemon verbena, and lavender. Here’s an easy step-by-step guide. Scroll to the bottom for a printable recipe card.

Lemon Lavender Herb Tea

Ingredients:

• 2-quart glass jar
• 2 quarts of water
• 1 1/2 – 2 cups fresh herbs
• stevia, honey, sugar (optional)

Directions:

1. Snip the herbs from your garden. I bring a basket to put them in and also a measuring cup outside with me to get an idea of the amount I will need.

2. Wash the herbs. I use a biodegradable natural cleaner (Shaklee’s Basic H) and lightly mist them with the spray, rinse them, and pat dry. I use the spray because the neighbor’s pets like to visit my garden.

3. Put all the herbs into the jar and fill with water. Take a wooden spoon or other utensil and push the herbs to help release some of their scent and oils.

4. Set the jar outside in a warm sunny place and let it infuse for 4-6 hours.

5. Bring it inside, strain the herbs out and discard or compost them, and sweeten to taste if you want. You can also include some fresh sweet stevia leaves while you are infusing if you’d like to try sweetening it that way too.

6. Add ice, a fresh herb sprig if you’d like, and enjoy!

What are your favorite herbs to use in sun teas? Just leave a comment below and thanks for reading!