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How to dry tea ivan, how to dry tea
The usual black, green, white tea came to Russia relatively recently – its mass distribution began already in the XNUMXth century. Prior to this, various herbal infusions and decoctions were used, including the famous Koporsky tea – dried flowers and leaves of a plant called ivan tea, or narrow-leaved fireweed. How to properly dry tea for health benefits and good taste?
How to dry ivan tea: raw materials for preparation
Everything goes into business: flowers, leaves, rhizomes of fireweed. In this case, the petals and rhizomes are dried immediately after collection, and it is desirable to pre-ferment the leaves. This process consists in manually twisting the sheets or passing them through a meat grinder and further keeping the raw materials under a damp cloth in a spacious container.
How to dry narrow-leaved fireweed tea?
As a result of fermentation, the smell and taste of the leaves changes: the original floral aroma becomes more intense and takes on fruity notes. Depending on the degree of fermentation – light: 3-6 hours; medium: 10-16 hours; deep: from 6 to 36 hours you can get a different type of Ivan tea.
Fireweed flower petals are kept until the initial pinkish-lilac color changes to purple. Rhizomes are used mainly for medicinal preparations; a common tea drink consists only of leaves and flowers.
The best drying option is in the shade, with constant ventilation. It is this method that the folk tradition recommends. If the weather does not allow such preparation of the product, you can use a dryer for fruits and vegetables, an oven. Of course, if there is a Russian stove in the house, it is worth drying only in it! So:
- in the oven – after heating, the oven should cool for an hour, after which a baking sheet with petals and willow-tea leaves is placed inside;
- to operate the electric dryer, follow the instructions;
- in the oven, fireweed is dried at a temperature of 30 degrees for petals and 60 degrees for fermented leaves.
The readiness is checked as follows: the raw material should break in the hands, not stick to them, especially for fermented leaves, and at the same time not turn into dust.
How to dry tea and store it correctly?
We have already sorted out the drying issues, it should only be noted that when preparing a product in a natural way, the final stage should be carried out for a mixture of leaves and petals – this way the taste will be as rich as possible. The mass should be periodically turned over for more even drying. During storage, as for ordinary tea, it is necessary to exclude direct sunlight.