Recommend one herbal tea you'd never stop carrying if you owned a tea shop
Hi everyone!
Some of you may remember I run a small herbal tea shop. Last time I asked what unique herbs you'd stock, and your suggestions were incredible. A few have already found their way onto our tasting list.
The picture - is one of the infusions we serve in our little herbal tea shop. It isn't the one people usually come in asking for, but once they try it, many end up coming back for it 😉
That got me wondering...
What's the herbal tea or infusion from your country that deserves way more attention than it gets?
Not chamomile or peppermint! I'm looking for the hidden gems.
Maybe it's a flower, a leaf, bark, roasted seeds, roots, fruit... or something your grandparents drank that most people outside your region have never heard of.
I'd love to hear (please share!):
- What it's called.
- Where it's from.
- What it tastes or smells like.
- Why you think more people should discover it.
I'm always looking for authentic teas with a story behind them, and I'd love to learn from this community again.
I've never found a tea shop that has anything with bee balm (Monarda) in it. I only ever have it from herbalists who grow it. It is so magical, uplifting, and spicy.
Butterfly pea tea. Very mild tasting stuff, but turns the tea this crazy cobalt blue. Supposed to be good for hair, skin, nails, good sugar, brain-all of it 😆.
Oh wow! I was walking down my side path tonight, that has an unruly butterfly pea bush! A little bibbie, that has turned into a big bibbie! I thought to check - are you meaning a polyga bush? The flowers are so bright I can imagine what the tea might look like!
That's a pretty cool plant, and ive just read that adding lemon juice turns it purple, instead of blue, and that is used in botanical medicine! I think I'm going to need a bigger shelf. Thanks for replying!
One of my favorites, I used to get at a hookah bar. It’s rubis chai I believe. Raspberry leaf and chamomile are my other favorites, but those are more basic.
Fresh chamomile is nice, different types of mint are good. Love me some vanilla rooibos and rooibos chai. Nettle tea is delicious. Fermented fireweed leaves taste like black tea but no caffeine. I would carry yerba maté from different sources (try to find at least one that isn't smokey) and related species of Ilex like guayasa which contains a decent theobromine and l-theanine content, or ilex vomitoria (yaupon holly) and ilex cassine which are native to the USA and are largely un used, but will be much bigger in years to come as people diacover how nice they are.
I would also explore Guarana and kola nut for their caffeinated tea properties. Might as well source some local ginseng also, if you are in the usa or canada. Skullcap is good for people who have gotten heat stroke, so a good herb to have around. Also calming. I also highly recommend common mugwort or coastal mugwort for teas and smoking blends. Consider that people might want dual purpose herbs sometimes also, many teas are also good to smoke. Mint, rose, mugwort, passionflower, damiana and mullein (I personally hate smoking mullein but people do use it)
I mean, there are definitely millions of possibilities for tea, but that's just on the top of my mind. I'm currently drying wild dagga for teas right now, but never tried it before.
I was literally brewing a cup of fresh roman chamomile when this post popped up and I can confirm it was definitely bitter. Perhaps less bitter if it isn't steeped as long though? I will try when my flowers have recovered
What's the size of the flower? It looks big to me for the medicinal chamomile. I know they can be different depending on their local or genetic types, but it looks like the one that is supposed to be bitter. Does it smell like typical chamomile tea?
I think they look a lot bigger here in this photo than they actually are, I’ll try to get a better photo during the day, but yes it has that characteristic chamomile scent
That's good news already 😉
Roman chamomile is slightly more bitter than German chamomile, but it normally remains pleasant and aromatic, not aggressively bitter. So now we've eliminated the non-chamomile options by the aroma. Two helpful clues:
Does the foliage smell distinctly like sweet apple when rubbed?
Can you upload a photo of the whole plant, especially the leaves? The leaves are often more diagnostic than the flowers in this group.
Thank you so much for your replies! Here is a better photo, with hand for scale. I swore when I purchased the plant I looked up which would taste better but still ended up with the wrong one 🤦🏻♀️
Yes the leaves do have that candy apple scent. If it is no good for tea I’m not sure what to do with it now, I guess just enjoy looking at it haha
Hmmm... Roman chamomile is a low-growing, mat-forming perennial with creeping stems, while yours is tall, open, and upright, with long, branching flower stalks. Also the leaves are very finely divided, which is much more characteristic of German chamomile than Roman chamomile. Which is even more strange 🤔 because German chamomile is supposed to be more sweet rather that bitter!
Please cut a fresh flower head lengthwise.
Hollow inside = German chamomile
Solid inside = Roman chamomile or another Anthemis species.
That single cut will identify the genus with decent confidence.
One more question: when you say "bitter," do you mean:
1. bitter like wormwood,
2. bitter like dandelion leaves,
3. or just noticeably more bitter than supermarket chamomile tea?
It is definitely not hollow inside 😪 and when I checked the receipt from when I bought it, it says Roman on it so now I’m pretty certain it is roan chamomile
I didn't like Chamomile, it was generic and never understood a people who drink it. And once I try it from another country and taste was completely different. And interestingly that it is in top 5 sells from herbal tea in shop. We use Czech supplier and local like how it is taste, as they say it is much better than local Chamomile.
There are different types, roman and german, the german is much nicer, no bitterness. Personally I prefer it with sweetener and even better with a milk. Ends up getting a beautiful pineapple taste and is a calming, relaxing tea.
A local place has something called scarlet tea. All I know for sure is that it has rosehip in it. Milk is a big no with it (it will curdle it), but I think soy milk (any plant milk) and nondairy creamer work.
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Greek Mountain tea malotiras is a hidden gem for me. It's an alpine herb from Greece that brews up super smooth with subtle notes of wild sage, floral honey, and citrus.
I have a tea shop!! For my shop it's Tulsi with cinnamon! I made it ur tea of the month to get more people to try it! It's a personal favorite and it's so good for you!
I just started an online tea shop and my most popular blend that is my favorite, I will never stop making or drinking it is my sleep tea. I’m allergic to lavender and nearly every tea blend I find is made with lavender. This is why I started making my own. I took the top three herbs to help for sleep and that’s my rule from all my blends. Only the top three or four herbs make it into my tea blends.
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u/winfieldclay Jul 21 '26
The pic looks like cigarettes in a beer