[sophiemellor]

Hi,

I am just wondering if anyone can help me with this! I am at University and have come up with a social enterprise idea for herbal tea where each flavour is sold individually, allowing customers to combine their own flavours. The flavours will be chamomile, sage, thyme, lemon balm, raspberry leaf, blackcurrant, lavender, rosemary and peppermint.
We are working with a local farm who will produce these fruits and herbs, dehydrate them and then we will package them and sell them to local businesses.

However, we have a few different size plots of land and so were wondering if any of you knew how much a square meter of fresh herbs weighed once they were dried out? We need to know this in order to calculate how much we can produce on the available plots but I'm struggling to find any information that would help!
If anyone can help me with this, I'd really appreciate it!!!

Thanks!!   

[JayG]

I don't know what percentage of the water is removed in the dehydration process, but plants in general have a water content of between 75 and 95% - a herb with soft leaves is likely to be near the top of that range, drier, more woody herbs probably nearer the lower end.

The yield from a square metre will vary hugely with the type of herb - lemon balm is a vigorous herbaceous shrub which will produce a relatively large yield, whereas thyme is low-growing and sprawling and can only be harvested quite cautiously, especially if expected to continue producing in future years.

[sophiemellor]

yes in terms of water content, i think the proportions are 3:1 for fresh herbs to dried herbs.

Do you know roughly how much we would yield from say lemon balm in a square meter?

thanks!

[JayG]

I'd be plucking a figure out of the air and it would be a complete guess - try Gurgling "Herb yield per acre" (rather than "herb yield" which tends to lead you somewhere a bit different!)

Lemon balm is likely to be the best producer of those on your list though, and you should be able to crop twice in one year.