When to collect and how to dry currant leaves to get quality tea

A modern choice of teas in stores should, it would seem, satisfy the tastes of the most fastidious connoisseurs. But if currants grow on your plot, collect and dry the leaves. They will give you the most intense taste and maximum benefit. And harvesting from a couple of plants will be enough for the whole winter and will remain for the summer, when it will be possible to collect a new crop.

Useful properties of currant tea

What is useful currant leaf tea:

• strengthens the immune system;
• relieves skin allergies;
• has pronounced anti-inflammatory properties;
• such tea is a reliable and safe prophylactic against eye and skin diseases;
• improves the condition of the musculoskeletal system.

And all this can be obtained by spending several hours a year on the preparation of currants for tea.

When to collect leaves?

In general, harvesting can be done at any time: starting in May, when the young greens just appeared, until September, when the leaves reached their maximum size. However, if you also want to get a rich harvest of berries, then it is better to pick leaves after the berries have formed, ripened and been harvested. Otherwise, the plant will grow young herbs instead of spending all the nutrients on the berries.

When to collect
Experienced procurers consider August to be the best time.

It is advisable to start the collection in the morning - at 10-11 hours. It is better to choose sunny, clear weather. Then, by the right time, the leaves will have dried out from the morning dew, but will not have time to overheat in the sun.

Greens can be torn off manually or use scissors (or pruners) for this. The main thing is not to damage the branch itself so that the infection does not get into the wound. It is also not recommended to pick all the greens - this will lead to a serious weakening of the plant. After collecting half, and preferably a third of the leaves, switch to another branch. With this approach, you will leave enough greens so that currants accumulate useful substances and calmly survive the fall and winter.

What leaves to take
Of course, not all leaves in a row are worth collecting. Choose only healthy, saturated green, neat, without spots and traces of any insects. Whole greens will be most beneficial.

By the way, you can also brew fresh leaves - just rinse them and immediately fill them with hot water (not boiling water, but with water at a temperature of about +95 degrees) and after 5 minutes you will get healthy, tasty herbal tea. But still, first of all, we are interested in how to prepare leaves for the winter. Therefore, we move on to the next question.

How to dry a currant leaf?

You can dry it properly in different ways, choose the option that suits you:

• on special baking sheets
• in an electric dryer?
• in the oven.

Dryer

The method with it, of course, is the fastest and easiest:

1. Lay out the leaves in the device with a thin layer and turn on the "Herbs" mode, and if this is not the case, set the temperature to + 40-45 degrees. Raspberry leaves and any other greens should be dried under the same conditions.
2. After 2-3 hours, the leaves will dry sufficiently. To check, take the sheet and gently knead it in your fingers - it should completely crumble, turning into fine dust. So you can put it in storage.
3. If the greens remain at least slightly moist, you need to continue drying. Even a small amount of moisture will cause mold to appear during long-term storage, which will destroy the result of labor.

Oven

Drying the leaves of blackcurrant in the oven takes a little longer. Procedure:

1. Cover the baking sheets with wax paper.
2. Lay the raw material in a thin layer.
3. Preheat the oven to +40 degrees and send the leaves to it. In this case, the door does not need to be closed tightly - leave a gap of a few centimeters so that the warm, saturated with moisture air comes out calmly.
4. Ted greens every hour and swap baking sheets for even drying.
5. After 3-4 hours, check the leaves for readiness - most likely, they have dried sufficiently.

Balcony

The slowest is the traditional way:

1. Lay out the leaves on pallets (special plastic or metal, with perforations at the bottom for good ventilation).
2. Leave in warm weather in the shade. Yes, it’s in the shade - even in the sun, the green will dry faster, but it can overheat, which will cause it to lose its rich aroma and pleasant green color.
3. After a few days, the workpieces can be poured into fabric or paper bags and put away in a closet.

Leaf fermentation

Some experts prefer not a conventional drying method, but a fermented one. They claim that it allows you to get a richer taste and aroma of currant tea.

Instruction:

1. The collected leaves should be left for 5-6 hours in a warm (but not hot!) Room so that they slightly fade.
2. After that, they need to be crushed. Here, everyone acts at his discretion. Some connoisseurs simply crush the leaves with their hands, folding them into thick sausages. Others pass through a meat grinder. Still others are laid out on a table and knead with a rolling pin. The main condition is that the leaves should give juice.
3. Now the whole mass should be laid in a thick layer in a basin, pan or bucket, tightened with gauze and left for 10-12 hours. The optimum temperature is + 25-28 degrees Celsius.
4. After this time, a pleasant smell of flowers starts to come out from the greenery. So, the fermentation process has been successfully completed.
5. It remains to dry the fermented greens by any of the above methods.

Storage rules

To brew aromatic currant tea in winter, you also need to know how to store the prepared greens. There are also certain rules:

1. It is important to protect currant leaves from direct sunlight and moisture.
2. In this case, it is desirable that the leaves breathe.
3. At the same time, in open containers, the workpiece will lose flavor.

It is best to put the chopped greens in a glass jar, close with a tight lid and put it in a cabinet away from heating systems and stoves. In this case, the leaves will retain beneficial properties and a great smell for several years. And certainly - until next summer, when it will be possible to replenish supplies and treat yourself to fresh currant tea.