Growing Your Own Tea Garden

”…a guide for steeping the perfect cup of tea from your harvest.” –Booklist

As someone who can’t live without her tea, I couldn’t wait to open this book when it arrived. I was truly blown away by all the wonderful knowledge and how many fruits, and parts of fruit plants could be used to create various kinds of tea. This is one of the first times I have ever seen a book approach making tea in a fun, information, and easy to follow way. Probably the most challenging section is learning about the most common teas - black, white, green, and oolong - and what you need to know before you start growing. Overall though, after finishing Growing Your Own Tea Garden: The Guide to Growing and Harvesting Flavorful Teas in Your Backyard, I recommend that every tea lover and gardener go out and buy this book! -Budget Earth Consumer Blog

Growing Your Own Tea Garden by Jodi Helmer is fabulous. -The Daily Meal

The ideal do-it-yourself instruction guide and manual for the gardener and tea enthusiast, “Growing Your Own Tea Garden: The Guide to Growing and Harvesting Flavorful Teas in Your Backyard” is packed with inspiration, illustrations, and practical instructions for cultivating and enjoying delicious teas on even the most modest plot of ground. Author Jodi Helmer (who is an experienced journalist who writes about food, gardening, farming, the environment and sustainable living) will help even the most novice of gardeners to effectively and successfully plan and plant a productive backyard tea garden. With sample garden designs and cultivation advice, Jodi shows how to choose the right crops for a particular soil and climate, and starting with the tea plant (Camellia sinensis), then going on through a comprehensive survey of tisanes, or herbal teas, readers will discover how to grow the full range of herbal infusions that make wonderful teas, from flowering chamomile and lavender to chicory roots, rose hips, lemon verbena, peppermint, aromatic bergamot and more. Jodi also shows how to harvest, dry and store tea to enjoy all year long, – along with brewing tips and creative recipes. It should be noted that sample tea garden designs include instructions for growing tea in container gardens and raised beds, understanding the differences between black tea, green tea, white tea and herbal tea, drying and storing tea leaves for consumption on cool autumn days, and ‘Let it steep: how to brew the perfect cup of tea’. Thoroughly ‘user friendly’ in organization and presentation, “Growing Your Own Tea Garden” is a unique and unreservedly recommended addition to personal and community library DIY Gardening instructional reference collections. Midwest Book Review

This charming paper back is chock full of information on herbal teas made from many of the plants we grow in our gardens, including herbs. And many of these teas have medicinal qualities that can benefit us all. The best news is most teas can be made from fresh leaves and/or flowers, so brewing a cup is a snap. You harvest the fresh leaves or flowers, drop them in a cup of hot water, give them a few minutes to steep and sip away. What could be easier? Helmer gives advice on how to dry and store tea for yearlong use, brewing tips and creative recipes along with growing tips. The chapter that intrigued me the most is Garden Designs. These themed gardens include plants that look good together and make good neighbors. There’s a sleepy-time tea garden, a fatigue-fighting tea garden, a relaxing tea garden and a headache tea garden. For those who like to party, there’s a hangover cure tea garden. Rock on! The Detroit News

What a fantastic resource! Specific information on a range of plants to grow for using in tea, along with instructions on how to harvest and prepare the plants and many different recipes. Really excited to try some of these.

With the help of this book, most anyone can plan a successful tea garden, then grow and create their own customized tea blends. Start now, and you can have a plenty ready in time for the next gift-giving season that will be here before we know it. –WFA Eats

Jodi Helmer is an experienced journalist who writes about food, gardening, farming, the environment and sustainable living. Jodi’s work has appeared in Entrepreneur, Hemispheres, Civil Eats, National Geographic Traveler, AARP, Farm Life, WebMD, Health, CNNMoney and Guardian Sustainable Business.