People actively use Ivan tea for health purposes and just instead of regular tea. It is easy to make blanks of narrow-leaved fireweed, the main thing is to follow the instructions and take a responsible approach to the process. To properly dry Ivan tea at home, you first need to collect it correctly. For the preparation of willow tea, leaves and flowers of narrow-leaved fireweed are collected; this plant, depending on the region, blooms from mid-June to mid-August. The collection of fireweed should be carried out in dry weather early in the morning; you do not need to touch dirty and diseased leaves. It is also not recommended to collect fireweed near highways and within the city.

How to properly dry Ivan tea at home

The question of how to properly collect and dry willow tea is now very relevant, but since there are many ways to harvest fireweed, there is no unequivocal answer to this question. Drying fireweed according to the following scheme is considered classic:

• rinsing and drying;
• drying;
• fermentation;
• drying.

Before properly drying willow tea, the collected leaves must be thoroughly rinsed, sorted out and dried. This is followed by the drying stage, you need to spread the clean leaves of fireweed on paper or fabric with a layer of 2-3 centimeters and leave in a dark place for a day, stirring occasionally. The most important stage of fermentation is considered, it can be carried out in different ways: through a meat grinder, using a linen cloth, manually or using a rolling pin. Manual fermentation is generally accepted, but it takes a long time. The essence of fermentation is to squeeze juice from the leaves of fireweed, in which they will then be infused.

Before properly drying the willow herb, it needs to settle in its own juice. Slightly squeezed leaves of fireweed should be placed in a container and infused at temperatures up to + 27 ° C for 20 hours. The longer the tea is infused, the stronger it is fermented; it is not recommended to infuse it for less than 8 hours. In the process of standing fireweed leaves in their own juice, the process of their oxidation occurs, and they acquire a pleasant floral aroma.

Drying the leaves is the final stage of harvesting. By watching the video "how to properly dry willow tea" at the end of the article, you can understand in more detail all the intricacies of this process. There is nothing complicated in drying fireweed; this process is identical with drying many other herbs. Fermented willow tea should be spread out on parchment or natural fabric in a thin layer and covered with a cloth on top to avoid dust.

It is best to dry fireweed in the oven at 100 ° C, stirring occasionally, but you can simply place the leaves in the sun and dry until completely dry. It is important not to overdry the leaves, because then they will crumble strongly, the fireweed during the drying process must be constantly stirred and monitored. Correctly dried ivan tea can be used for 2 years, after this period it begins to lose its properties.