Harvest herbs for brewing teas

Herb teas are inexpensive and tasty. Still, you might want to grow some herbs for tea simply because the plants are pretty and easy to grow.

Mints are what first come to mind in herb teas. Peppermint and spearmint are the most familiar mints, but there are plenty of others. Chocolate mint, orange mint, and apple mint are as appealing in name as in aroma. They all spread by underground runners, and the only challenge is keeping them within bounds.

The mint family also embraces many non-minty mints good for teas. (All mints have square stems, so an easy way to tell if a plant is in the mint family is to roll its stem between your fingers.) Bee-balm is usually grown for its scarlet flowers, but brews up a soothing tea. Pineapple sage is a kind of sage that is good for flavoring tea rather than for stuffing a turkey. It can't tolerate bitter cold but can be grown in a pot moved to shelter in winter.

Cold, lemony teas are appealing in hot weather, and many herbs have a naturally lemony flavor. The bright, lime-green leaves of lemon verbena have a pure and intense lemon flavor. This shrub, like pineapple sage, must be protected where winters are cold. Lemon balm is a robust and cold-hardy plant. More sedate in its growth is lemon thyme, with dainty leaves on a foot-high plant.

Chamomile is as wonderful in the ground as in a teapot. Despite the delicate appearance of the bright green, ferny leaves and little daisy heads, chamomile is tough -- "the more it is trodden upon, the faster it grows" (William Shakespeare, Henry IV). It spreads by creeping stems and by self-seeding. Chamomile tea is brewed from the flower heads, scented like a combination of apple and pineapple.

The list of plants that you can brew into tea goes on and on -- raspberry leaves, rose hips (fruits), wintergreen leaves, sweet woodruff leaves, black birch bark, fennel seeds. Don't assume, though, that you can brew a cup of tea from just any plant: Some plants make a tasteless or unpalatable tea; other plants are toxic.

Real tea, so-called China tea, could be grown, but its leaves require special curing for a good cup of tea. For an easier substitute, plant New Jersey tea, also called liberty tea, a native shrub whose leaves provided a substitute for China tea in Revolutionary times.