Fireweed tea! A thread 🍃

This plant appears in areas after clear-cuts and forest fires to repair disturbed soil. The leaves can be transformed into a fermented, cured black tea. No caffeine, good for the kidneys. 

I'll document the process over the coming days as replies to this thread.

Harvesting the leaves is super easy!

Hold the top with one hand, then with a semi-firm grip, start just below the flowers and quickly swipe down 75% of the stalk. The leaves pop right off in your hand. Bag 'em. 😊

Then spread out on a clean surface to wilt overnight. 

I took the leaves from 7 mature plants.

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It's been about 6 hours and they've wilted just enough! You need to have enough moisture released from the leaves to aid in the aerobic fermentation process (oxygen assisted). 

The biggest risk here is allowing them to wilt for too long and then they become too dry and won't release any liquid.

45 minutes later we have a 1 Liter mason jar about 3/4 full of juicy, hand-crushed fireweed leaves, ready to begin the permentation process!

Cover the jar and over the next few days, open it a few times a day to let air in and shake them to increase surface exposure. Observe the change in smell each time.

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You can make a really nice jelly with the flowers, I'll be doing that in a few weeks when the flowers are fully bloomed. Such a pretty fucshia colour too and tastes similar to crab apple jelly. Delish and delicate. 🥰 

It's my favourite plant, ngl.

Wow it's flowers are beautiful 😍 

How do the leaves turn into black tea? By drying the leaves?

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This one is a little bitter if you stop the process too early. It takes 3-5 days before you have to dry it completely (to stop fermentation) and then it goes airtight for at least 3 months to develop flavour. Curing it 6 months makes it even better in my experience. But if you go past 5 days in the moist phase at the begining, you risk mold getting in there, and that ruins it. But the longer it can go at the start, the less bitter it is.

I'm not sure what would be a comparable plant 🤔. Even weirder, when I discovered/researched in way back in 2015, it was developed in Russia in like the middle ages and they made a killing on selling it right up until the late 1700s when England enforced an embargo on imports.

Now I can't find any reference at all to all the stuff I read back then.

Weird.

Amazing thread Joely🥳

We've got leaves like the bitter leaf over here, we use it to make soup or just drink it normally, the leaf helps in kidney problems too

We would normal squeeze their juices out too

Quite bitter i might add

I only ever researched this plant, but I assume it's similar? I can't really say, sorry!

Thanks for sharing this thread with full details
We always get ready-made tea bags, so I never knew it had so many steps to follow carefully
I would like to try it once myself! Does the same process apply for other plants or only for the fireweed?