It’s November and Ju-Hua Chrysanthemums are in bloom. It’s time to harvest the flowers to make Chrysanthemum tea, the herbal infusion that is served at every Dim Sum place.
In my Central Texas yard, Ju-Hua Chrysanthemum grows enthusiastically and is relatively drought tolerant, though I do grow the plant in the dappled shade of a fruit tree to reduce the need for watering. They have sprawling growth habit, which is a happy problem for me, more spread means more flowers to harvest. I use some flowers refresh, air dry the rest thoroughly and store them for later enjoyment.
This Mountain Gardens video that I came across is a nice introduction to different varieties of Ju-Hua Chrysanthemum and their medicinal properties.
After watching the picturesque video of Liziqi gathering ingredients for making herbal tea, I realized that I actually have four ingredients she used in the video growing in my own yard, Ju-Hua Chrysanthemum flowers, kumquat, mulberry leaves and rose petals. Time to make a pot of warming tea. Ju-Hua and rose are magnets for tiny insects where I am, so I do rinse them thoroughly. The color of the tea is a lovely shade of pale pink. The taste is delicious, slightly fragrant from the combination of the rose petals, the citrus oil of the kumquats and the Ju-Hua flowers, and just the right amount of sweetness from the Meiwa kumquats.
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