How to Roast Your Own Tea!

The other day my friend asked me about how I make my tea and I thought, "HEY! If he was interested in how I home make tea, maybe other people will be interested it too!" And it's super easy!

So here's a post with tips on how to roast your own tea! 

***DISCLAIMER: I roast my tea because I feel it gives more flavor and as my friend quoted: "it doesn't taste like grass water when it's roasted." It will be crumbly. You can probably make it less crumbly by putting it on the oven about 5 minutes less than I do.***

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1) I get my tea leaves from a plant nursery, plant them in pots at home, then they grow bigger! I get lemon balm, lavender, and mint. Those are my go-to tea plants. For this post, I'm going to stick with mint leaves (but my signature tea is lavender and mint mixed together. IT'S SO GOOD. Even my family thinks so!)

2) After your satisfied with the amount of leaves that have grown, pick a bunch of mint. And I do mean a bunch. They shrink up in the oven so you'll need a lot of leaves. 

3) Bring them inside and wash them in a strainer. Rinsing them with water is what I do. You can also fill a bowl with water and swirl the leaves around to wash them.

4) Preheat your oven to 200 degrees at this point

5) Next, bring out your baking pants (I just use cookie sheets because it doesn't matter what pans, honestly). Now, MAKE SURE YOU RIP THE MINT LEAVES IN HALF!!!! THAT'S WHAT BRINGS OUT THE FLAVOR!!! You can even smell it stronger when you rip it. So, rip the leaves in half and place them down on the cookie sheets, spread out. They can still be wet, that's perfectly fine.

6) Place them in the oven for 15 minutes. Then, wait for 15 minutes. Obviously ;) 

7) Take them out of the oven when it beeps. It will look like crispy, illegal contraband. Like, a lot, honestly. BUT THAT MEANS IT'S DONE!

8) Wait to it cools down, then what I do is put the crispy leaves in a bag, then crunch them. Don't crunch them down to a pulp, but crunch them just enough. 

9) What you can do next is dump the roasted leaves in a empty tea bag, seal it, then use it. Or if you read my disclaimer, you can roast for about 8 minutes instead, which doesn't make them as crispy, and you can put them on a strainer most likely (I've never tried a strainer). 

**My tea bag is a coffee filter which is stapled shut because I'm really cheap. But it works! Also, with roasted tea, you need to let it seep in your mug a little bit longer. It won't be crazy strong, but it's still so tasty!**

Let me know on my Facebook page if you enjoyed this! I love making my DIY tea so I really liked this post! :)