ON BLENDING HERBS including a simple Tisane recipe

Mia and I often get asked how we know which herbs to blend together to create our medicinal and comfort tisanes. We could be simple about it and answer that it's many years of learning, trial and error, making mistakes, researching, consulting and experimenting. Although this is very true, please remember that we started with little to no knowledge all those years ago! What has been important and monumental in our ongoing success is the burning desire to succeed and to help others 'Heal by Nature'. So, let's get right to it then.

Blending herbs for Tisane

First thing to put to rest is the word, 'tisane'. Without quoting a dictionary, this word essentially means a blended tea of any variety and number of parts of herbs (leaves, flowers, berries, fruit, stems, bark, roots). The difference between a tisane and a tea is that teas contain leaves from a tea plant (leaves from the Camellia sinensis plant, which includes green, black, yellow, oolong, pu’erh, and white teas) which contain caffeine . A tisane generally contains no caffeine and is purely herbal in nature. Secondly, why blend herbs? Surely there is one single herb from the millions out there that is awesome for healing one thing! Combining or 'blending' herbs properly truly has merit and here's a quick explanation why. For instance, drinking turmeric tea alone renders most of the medicinal components as bio-unavailable to the body. Blending turmeric with some black pepper makes the medicinal compounds in turmeric much more bioavailable in our bodies. So, increasing bioavailability of medicinal compounds is a good reason to blend herbs. Certain herbs also act as catalysts to each others medicinal compounds, enabling higher potency overall when combined. Also, other herbs may act as 'carriers' in the body to take medicinal components where they need to go. As well, certain herbs will create a taste bond that enables other less tasty herbs to be more easily consumed.

Ok, sooo lets bring out the herbs! What now?

There are a few very important guidelines (we dislike the word 'rules') when blending herbs for tisane whether the intent is medicinal or not.

• Certain herbs have an effect on certain organs in the body. When a person has known allergies or illnesses, is on any medications, or is pregnant or breast feeding there will be certain herbs that should be avoided. For this very reason every one of our products bears a medical advisories label that reads, "Those with known allergies to any of the ingredients. As always consult a medical professional before consuming or applying any herbal product.". This is there to make customers aware and think before consuming... be smart and be safe.

• If one is very sensitive to new foods and drinks, a 'single herb introduction' method may be useful. Pete has severe Crohn's disease which has made his body very sensitive to new foods and drinks. He often uses this method to source out what his body is good with. Break down a blend: Introduce a small amount of one herb from the blend (one at a time) for a short period of time (one to two days). See how your body reacts to that herb. If good, do the same with another herb in the blend and so on. Note any adverse or other reactions to certain specific herbs. Write that down and keep it handy. Eventually you will have compiled a list of herbs that agree/disagree with your constitution. Then it's simply a matter of reading ingredients. If ingredients are listed in Latin, search the common name for simplicity. Record both names, as common names can vary by region for the same herbs and mushrooms.

• Do some simple online research! As an example, when Pete first came across Chamaenerion angustifolium (Fireweed) tea it quickly became apparent that the entire plant from roots to flowers was filled with amazing medicinal properties. Not only that, but the different parts of the plant (leaves, flowers, stems, roots, seeds) had to be harvested at different times in its growth cycle to obtain maximum efficacy in the medicinal properties. As well, the different parts of the plant had varying medicinal properties and had to be differently processed in order to access those medicinal qualities. Some can be infused, some must be decocted, fermented/oxidized, some mechanically processed before adding. Yes, there is a lot to learn. The good news: all of this information and more is easily accessible via the internet. *Develop good browsing skills to help filter out the junk.

• Low dosage. There is always a 'hero dose' for everything but please remember to start small when it comes to dose. A general guideline for tisane is 1.4g - 1.8g (one teaspoon) of the blend to a mug of hot water up to three times per day (depending on the blend). See how that goes. Pete started drinking his Ivan Chai using this principle almost a year ago and is still at one teaspoon to a mug of hot water two to three times per day! He has experimented with higher and lower doses to arrive at this. Dosage is unfortunately person-specific. There are guidelines, but listening to ones body is the best way. Experiment slowly with dose, starting small. If it feels right, great. If not, either lower or increase the dose depending on what is experienced. If it does not feel right at all, stop consuming it! Pete's Golden Rule is, "too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing!".

Both Mia and I have researched, consulted about, and use a variety of different herbal healing modalities in order to achieve greatest efficacy with our herbal/medicinal blends. Neither one of us is, nor pretends to be, a medical doctor. Traditional Chinese Medicine classifies herbs into five distinct categories by by taste: Sour (calms the body), Bitter (clears heat), Sweet (tonifies the body), Spicy (expels wind and cold from the body), and Salty (helps the body dissolve stagnation). We combine this with European herbal medicine learned from reading and re-reading books that are long out of print, (we have and have read over thirty books on herbalism/herbal healing alone in our growing personal library) as well as other modalities all ultimately playing a role in the craft of tisane. Start simple. Start small. That's what Mia and I did. I remember picking my first herbs in the wild as a wee child with my Ukrainian/Polish Baba and excitedly bringing them home to dry and use in a tea that I made under her strict guidance. A tea which would help me sleep better. I had terrible night terrors as a child and luckily my parents refused to string me out on pharmaceuticals. Did it work? Yes, in so many different ways. There is much power in gaining knowledge on helping ones self to heal in natural ways. (Pete's personal Disclaimer: "I have nothing against Western medicine. Without our trauma care I would have been dead and buried long ago. I simply dislike pharmaceutical drugs and their side effects and labels."). So, let's make a simple tisane blend using ingredients that should be fairly easy to source (because not all are!).

Herbal Tisane - the craft

Good to have:

• small kitchen scale

• a few stainless steel bowls - we don't use plastic

• glass measuring cup and/or metal measuring spoons

• tea ball

• mason jars

• mason jar sealer

• wood baking spoon

• metal whisk

YOUR FIRST HOME CRAFTED TISANE:

A very simple but effective herbal tea blend that is great for strengthening the immune system against colds during the shoulder season between summer and outright winter.

INGREDIENTS (*to make one mug of tea):

• 1 tablespoon dry, crushed Mullein leaf (Verbascum thapsus)

• 1/4 teaspoon Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)

METHOD:

Combine ingredients in a tea ball or equivalent. Pour over hot water (87 C), cover and let infuse for twenty minutes. Hotter water may bring too much bitterness out. Drink up to three times daily for a few weeks.

*If you wish to make a larger amount of this tea that you can store in a sealed mason jar, simply multiply all ingredients by the same number.

• Weigh one tablespoon of dry crushed Mullein leaf on your scale. Record that.

• Repeat for 1/4 teaspoon Thyme. Record that.

• If you want to increase the recipe by ten times, multiply each ingredient measure by ten. Blend that and seal in a mason jar using a mason jar sealer.

• Use one tablespoon from your jar to a mug of tea.

Ok, you did it! Yaaaaay! That's empowering, right!

Before getting too carried away, please remember that with most herbal/medicinal teas, the medicinal effects are 'noticed' in the body over time. That can differ, depending on the herbs and the condition (a few days to a few weeks). This is very important to process. Humanity has been changed by the 'immediacy' of pharmaceutical drugs. Take it now, all symptoms gone in a few hours... except of course the side effects which sometimes take years to do their dirty work and surface.

Please let us know in the comments how your experience went!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for our next blog article.

Mia & Pete

REFERENCES:

Five tastes in Traditional Chinese Medicine:

https://asante-academy.com/encyclopedia/five-flavours-of-chinese-herbs/#:~:text=The%20five%20flavours%20of%20Chinese,normally%20perceived%20by%20the%20tongue.