Anyone make tea with beebalm?

[baconexplosion]

I've heard that you can make tea with the dried flower heads of beebalm. Is this accurate? If anybody has a recipe I'd love to hear about it!

 

[lynpenny]

no but I have made it using fresh mint leaves. love that.

 

[Randy]

My Mom used to put some mint leaves in our iced tea years ago. I don't usually have iced tea any more though. I usually have a cup of hot green tea. I could crush a mint leaf into that. My mint is dead right now, but will come back in the spring.

 

[sunflower3]

I have tried it with bee balm and it was yucky, very bitter to me, didn't like it at all. I use my mint and lemon balm so much better. I even mix the two together and it's wonderful. Chocolate mint is good also.

 

[Crabbergirl]

Hi Bacon,
Nope never used bee balm. I think you can though. By the way.......WELCOME
Always use some mint. The yard is full of it!

 

[rockhound]

There is an odd thing I discovered about Bee Balm leaves. Pick a fresh leaf and chew it a minute and it has a hot pepper, (more like black pepper than capsicum) taste to it but the INSTANT you spit it out, the hotness goes away. I have wanted to put this quality to some good use but can't think of any way. Ideas?
I have dried the leaves and crushed them to season a plain Alfredo pasta, kind of a dry basil taste, but not quite. Nice tho.

 

[Crabbergirl]

Have you brewed it as a tea? I wonder if the effects of the peppery taste could be used as a capsicum for headaches. My son gave me a capsicum tea and it helps to releive headaches.

Let us know what you come up with. Always interested in herbs. I will look through my old , very old herbal book and see what I can find.

 

[rockhound]

No, sorry. I haven't made tea with it but just knowing the plant family I would think it might be good straight or mixed with others. I like to use honey as a sweetener for most herb teas. Tried stevia, never could get it right somehow.

 

[Maggie]

You can type bee balm tea in your search engine and it will bring up lots of site with recipes for bee balm tea.

 

[Crabbergirl]

No, sorry. I haven't made tea with it but just knowing the plant family I would think it might be good straight or mixed with others. I like to use honey as a sweetener for most herb teas. Tried stevia, never could get it right somehow.

With my home grown stevia, I either steep it with the tea or if I make my tea in the coffee maker I pack the basket with "fresh" stevia leaves. Home grown stevia is usable only in liquids. There is now way to preserve the sweetens or to make it a powder like you buy. You can dry the leaves and crush them but it is not the same.
If you use the store bought stevia, it is just trial and error to your taste.

 

[Randy]

There was some discussion last Monday evening at our diabetes support group meeting about stevia. Our nurse/dietician/counselor said that at least it was a natural sweetener and not chemically produced. The recommendation of the medical people that have spoken to us is to avoid sugar substitutes that are chemically made. Our taste receptors still sense the sweetness from them and the pancreas will increase insulin production to deal with them. That leads to the possibility of low blood/glucose levels and the complications caused by that. In extreme cases that would be diabetic coma.

 

[baconexplosion]

Hi Bacon,
Nope never used bee balm. I think you can though. By the way.......WELCOME
Always use some mint. The yard is full of it!

Thanks for the welcome!

No, sorry. I haven't made tea with it but just knowing the plant family I would think it might be good straight or mixed with others. I like to use honey as a sweetener for most herb teas. Tried stevia, never could get it right somehow.

We planted some stevia last year... I always grabbed a piece to chew on when coming in and out of the house...

I'm definately going to try it... I'll let you know what happens.