Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Rose Hip Tea

Fall brings rose hips in my neighborhood.  I love these plump orange/red fruits.  Picked when ripe but juicy (left), these can be made into a fresh herbal tea.  Picked when dried (right), or allowed to dry naturally, they can be stored for a teatime beverage in the wintertime.  (The hips are high in Vitamin C.)

This was my first experience making fresh rose hip tea, and I'm not sure I've got it right just yet.  Everything I read suggested that I needed to open the hip and remove the fuzzy seeds inside.  I did this, more or less.  What is your advice, is this necessary?
Also, I think I needed about double the amount of fruit, for a stronger brew.  My herbal tea was delicious, but lightly flavored.  With more fruit, it would brew faster and stronger. 

The liquid itself was full of small filaments.  I'm not sure if it was pulp or the fur from the few remaining seeds.  Thoughts?  A simple solution to this was to pour the liquid through a tea sock (cloth filter, but paper would work, too).
The flavor was delicately tart with a hint of sweetness and rosiness.  I enjoyed and will definitely keep experimenting with the formula.  I'd love to hear your advice!

7 comments:

Marilyn Miller said...

Haven't tried this, but will be interested in your adventure. Drinking it straight might not be to my pleasure, but mixed with a touch of black tea too - now I think I might like that.

Teafan said...

What a cool photo of the two versions of rose hips!

Rosemary said...

After consulting with my sister, here are a few of our suggestions: she thinks perhaps your rosehips need to ripen a little longer on the bush so they are more red than red/orange. Also, it's not really necessary to cut open the hips to remove the seeds, unless you are making a marmalade or jelly. And, try simmering (not merely steeping) the hips in the water for a longer time period, and as you noted, using more hips would also result in a stronger tisane. Keep experimenting, and do report back!

Steph said...

Dearest Susanna and Nancy - THANK you so much for your advice on the rose hips! Makes sense and I will report back!

Angela McRae said...

I have purchased rose hip tea but never made my own, so I will be interested to learn more about what you discover here!

The Teaist said...

Hi Steph!

Congratulations... I enjoyed your blog this past week and I've listed your tea post at my weekly link up. Hope you don't mind! :)
Enjoy the extra traffic and feel free to share.

You can find my post here:
http://the-teaist.blogspot.nl/2012/11/tea-talk-link-up-every-wednesday.html

:)

Allison said...

Have you ever used a dehydrator? I'm thinking of dehydrating some fruits that I can use for tisanes.