I used to have a line-up of Pukka teas all along the top of my kitchen dresser. Attracted by the colourful packaging and enticing names, I believed that these tea bags were plastic-free until a reader pointed out to me that the sachets each tea bag is sealed in is lined with a polymer for gluing the paper together. Many herbal tea brands, if not all, use plastic in some way or another so I decided to look around my garden to see if I had any herbs, apart from the obvious peppermint and lemon balm, that would be good for making herbal tea. I counted 11 additional plants: chamomile, purple and green sage, rosemary, thyme, elderflower, comfrey, yarrow, nettles and dandelion. And that was just the ones I instantly recognised. How had I missed this opportunity for fresh tea straight from mother nature? The answer of course is because of shiny beautiful packaging of ‘bought’ tea and how easy it is to pop a pack into the shopping basket.

Fresh herb tea tastes beautifully subtle and alive and is easy to make – simply pour hot water over a few freshly picked leaves and let them steep for five minutes. Drying bunches of herbs for making tea for the winter months is also very easy to do. Hang a bunch of herbs upside down for a few days, rub the leaves or flowers off the stems, and store them in a jar or paper bag. You can combine different herbs to suit your taste or try recipes for soothing colds and other ailments. Another wonderful type of herbal tea is hot water with a shot of homemade elderflower cordial.

You don’t need to grow a great quantity of herbs to make a lot of herbal tea – which came as surprise to me. Just one yarrow plant yielded much more than I could possibly use. There are also many wild herbs and weeds that make great tea, such as nettle and dandelion leaves. If you don’t have a garden, growing peppermint in a pot on your windowsill or collecting wild herbs on a walk are good options. You can of course buy loose leaf unpackaged tea from Neil’s Yard and other tea shops – but do take your own paper bags and ask them not to put a plastic sticker on the bag.

Useful links:

• Herb teas for healing: https://smtebooks.com/book/5280/holistic-herbal-4th-edition-pdf
• Best herbs to grow for tea: https://www.thespruce.com/best-herbs-for-tea-4151170
• Neil’s Yard shops for loose herbal tea: http://www.nealsyardremedies.com/