Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Eating and Drinking => Cooking, Storing and Preserving => Topic started by: Eat your greens on July 30, 2019, 10:40
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Hi all, this year I've grown chamomile in the tunnel. It grew fantastic, I harvested it, dried it and cured it. Last night I went to try it and it was the most awful taste. A cross between bitterness and a cough syrup. What is the story here. Wrong variety, steeping too long, what are the tea bags you buy made from??? The seeds I bought advertised it was for making tea, although it didn't specify the variety. Can anybody help!! Thanks.
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There are only really a couple of types -regular tall chamomile that flowers and the ground cover lawn one that doesn't.
Assuming you have the flowering one, that is what the teabags are made from. I've always just dried it, so what did you do to cure it? Perhaps that is the problem?
Other than that, perhaps too much dried herb in the brew or steeping too long. You only need a teaspoon of herb per cup and a couple of minutes steeping.
Hope that helps a bit :)
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It was the chamomile that flowers. And I got lots of flowers too! All I did to cure it was put the flowers in an airtight container n leave it somewhere warm to drive off the last of the moisture. When you see the condensation open up the jar for an hour or so then close again and repeat until no condensation. I'll try making another cup, thanks :D
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We get our Chamomile as loose dried flowers and find that one scanty teaspoon per cup and 80C (if your kettle can do off-boil water) and strictly three minutes before straining is nice for a non-bitter cup. Once you go over about 4 minutes you start to get the bitterness.
It will probably be German Chamomile that you have - the tall flowering one. Roman Chamomile is the crawling low variety that is not used for teas.
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I dry the flowers outside on a fine mesh frame to let the air circulate, mostly in the shade as I think this keep more of the flavour as full sun in the Summer is very strong.
I like Daniel's precision with water temperature and time of steeping... pretty much what I do but without timing. I go by the golden colour which you don't want too dark