Sun Tea

During my time at Frog Holler I learned how to make sun tea. For last year's HollerFest, Cathy made experimental batches of the stuff using a variety of herbs from around the farm in varying ratios until she came up with the combination that seemed to please every palette. (If you go this year, I'm betting Holler Tea will be found yet again. This is only one excellent reason to attend this awesome musical festival, of course.)

Watching it brew in big glass carboys, I decided I could do the same thing with herbs in my garden. I tried my own combinations, and found none to be too bad except for maybe the parsley tea. (It seemed logical. It tastes good in everything else.)

Anyway, here in Tokyo the garden is chock full of good herbs. Now that the rainy season is officially over and summer is here in full force (we've changed our farm schedule to start around 6:30am or 7am in an effort to beat the heat) I've got the first batch brewing. The farmers have not tried it before, but I think it will be right up their alley.

My batch uses fennel, mint, and a wee bit of lemon balm. I simply pluck an assortment of stems of each, remove the leaves and jam them into a pitcher, fill said pitcher with water, and set it in the sun. Wait a couple days, strain out the leaves, chill, and serve. Make notes on what seems to work (or not) and start again. This recipe at Organic Gardening has exact measurements and calls for tea bags, neither of which I think are critical for success in this case.