This jade-tinged cup of ‘tea’ or tisane, since it’s not made with tea leaves, is what we’ve been brewing after harvests from the Oranjezicht City Farm, where we’ll be doing a spring workshop in September.
The bundles of greens coming out the garden have inspired us to revisit these, and stinging nettles have also been a regular feature in the weekly offering. So those leaves have landed in a tea pot, to be steeped in freshly boiled water for at least five minutes and sipped following all the slow cooking and melted cheese.
If ‘stinging nettles’ sound fierce, they certainly live up to their name even when accidentally brushing up against them – but that’s only prior to submerging in boiling water. It just means some strategic harvesting, cutting leaves straight into a packet, or wearing sturdy gloves, and handling with tongs in the kitchen.
My godmother was always singing the praises of stinging-nettle tea for its health properties, but we are certainly not health writers and will leave you to verify those from the relevant sources.
When serving a pot of it after an extended dinner around our table, a friend described it as tasting more like a very vegetal bouillon than a tea and when leaning in to take a sip the aroma reminds me of simmering chard.
There’ll be plenty of green at the workshop and if you’d like to save the date, it will be the morning of Saturday 16 September. More details to follow!