With the weather getting shitty once again, it’s time for everyone to resume drinking tea for the season. I’m a big fan of experimenting with herbs and fruits to make tisane, the fancy word for any tea that is made from a plant that’s not officially in the tea family. Recently our raspberry plants had their Fall crop, and so I decided to use them, since raspberry tea already exists. As long as you know your plant isn’t poisonous, you can have a lot of fun testing out different teas. This particular tea calls for raspberries and leaves from the plant. If you or someone you know has them, you can do it pretty easily. Alternately if you live near a farm, get some there. The leaves themselves have a fresh, astringent taste to them. If you don’t have access to raspberry leaves, you can likely use any number of similar herbs like mint or sage, and just up the fruit count a few berries to compensate.

Fun fact, apparently raspberry tea is good for menstrual pain cramps and other abdominal discomfort. So if you’re looking for home remedies, give this a shot. (Iiiiiii really can’t speak from personal experience on that one. Sorry.)

Raspberry Tea

• 1 cup water
• 5 raspberries
• 3 large raspberry leaves (substitute mint or other herb if unavailable, add two extra raspberries)
• Sugar

1. Heat water inside of a tea kettle until it starts boiling.
2. Chop raspberry leaves into strips. Lightly crush berries so that their juice is exposed but not lost.
3. After water is boiling, add leaves and berries to a tea ball, steeping mug, or other loose tea device and steep for 5-6 minutes.
4. Add in sugar to desired sweetness. Serve hot.

Serves one person.