Reasonable pursuit of a healthy lifestyle brings you back to basics. It is not surprising that willow tea, which reigned on the tables of our ancestors long before the Chinese and Indian drink, is now receiving such close attention. Traditional methods of harvesting and fermentation are complemented by modern ones, making the whole process much more accessible to the average citizen. It is possible to collect willow tea from May to September, but harvesting can be carried out at least all year round using the following method.
Where does Ivan-tea grow
The collection of willow tea, or Koporye tea, begins in May, when the first shoots appear. It is easy for a knowledgeable person to distinguish them from other plants, but a beginner can get confused, especially when there are no bright pink inflorescences. Go to those places where Ivan-tea has been noticed since last year. Most often these are former fires, felling sites, roadsides.
How to identify ivan tea
Its young shoots are straight, naked, without a cannon. Densely covered with narrow, straight, lanceolate leaves. The plant sap is slightly sticky, slimy and sweetish. As the shoot develops, inflorescences appear on top of the shoot. This happens in early July. In the process of seed ripening, the inflorescences fluff.
For harvesting, leaves from non-flowering shoots are best, but this is not at all necessary. The tea of the May collection has the most delicate taste, the July tea has the most intense, the September tea has a calm and balanced taste.
Stage 1: collecting leaves and flowers
It's simple: grab the shoot by the top with one hand, and with the other, grasp it and remove all the leaves from the inflorescences to the very bottom. For convenience, willow tea can be broken off in the place where the leaves are already too hard and eaten by insects. Do not be afraid, you will not cause any harm to the ecosystem. Ivan tea has a powerful root system with many buds, which allows the plant to easily throw out new shoots in place of old ones next year.
Sort the leaves immediately on site, removing tough and damaged leaves. The inflorescences can also be collected, the main thing is to dry them immediately so that they do not have time to ripen and fluff.
Stage 2: freezing
After sorting, send the leaves to the freezer right in the bags they were collected in. 12 hours of freezing will be enough for all the water in them to crystallize. Why is this done? In order to disrupt the cell walls in the leaves and facilitate the release of juice, which is essential for further fermentation.
Stage 3: rolling the leaves
The best quality tea is obtained by twisting each leaf separately: hold it between your palms and roll it several times. The process will go faster for watching a movie or listening to an audiobook. Keep in mind that at this stage juice is abundantly released from the leaves, so it is better to do this over a wide bowl.
Stage 4: fermentation of Ivan tea
Correct fermentation, that is, the transformation of substances in the juice under the action of natural enzymes into useful digestible soluble compounds, should take place with a minimum access of oxygen. There are two options: use a vacuum or just fill the jar very tightly, leaving no space between the lid and the leaves. The first method is much simpler and allows you to use all raw materials, regardless of the quantity. Simply place the leaves in a container, close the lid and evacuate the air. Place in a warm place for 24-48 hours.
From time to time it will be necessary to pump out the resulting gases and monitor the smell. Fermenting willow tea emits a fruity aroma similar to apple or pear. If you smell an unpleasant smell, alas, the raw materials are spoiled. The method with vacuumization reduces failures to almost zero, since mold and pathogenic bacteria do not multiply in an oxygen-free environment.
Stage 5: slicing
When the leaves darken, they need to be cut and sent back to fermentation for a day. The width of the cut will depend not only on the appearance of the raw material, but also on the taste. You can do without this altogether if you just roll the twisted leaves in your palms, making balls out of them. These bulbs will ferment longer and give the tea a richer flavor.
Stage 6: drying and drying
These two processes should be separated:
- drying is preliminary drying of leaves, until the moment when excess moisture has already evaporated, but they still remain elastic;
- drying - the final disposal of raw materials from moisture during heat treatment or natural drying.
After the obligatory drying, you can get green or black willow tea. In the first case, the raw material is scattered in a darkened ventilated area. In the second, the raw materials are dried in a microwave, dryer or oven at temperatures up to 80 ° C, preferably without ventilation. If forced ventilation is operated, the end product may lose flavor. Ultimately, after drying, the leaves turn black with a bluish or brownish tint.
How to make Ivan tea
Ivan tea is brewed in an ordinary teapot or in a water bath. In the second case, 1 tea boat with a slide is poured with a glass of boiling water and kept in a water bath or in a thermos for 20 minutes. The color of the drink turns amber or even brown - it all depends on the time of fermentation and drying.
Why is Koporye tea useful?
The taste of fermented willow tea is difficult to convey: it contains traces of prunes, pears, apples. If you add dried flowers to it, the tea becomes not only tasty, but also very beautiful. And the benefits of the drink can hardly be overestimated. It has a pronounced anti-inflammatory effect, has an enveloping effect on the gastric mucosa. Due to this, it is successfully used to treat inflammatory processes of the genitourinary system of both men and women. It calms the nervous system no worse than valerian and has an anticonvulsant effect. So drinking Ivan tea is not only delicious, but also extremely healthy!
