The joys of a tea garden

All true teas, whether white, green, oolong or black, come from one plant — Camellia sinensis.

A flowering plant native to the high mountains of the Yunnan province of Southern China, it is not necessarily an easy thing to grow. In fact, growing quality tea can be as complex as growing great grapes for fine wine, says Cassie Liversidge, a London-based writer in her new book "Homegrown Tea," (St. Martin's Griffin).

But there are a seemingly limitless number of easy-to-grow herbs, shrubs and plants, from anise hyssop to ginger, that make tasty and even healing "tisanes," the proper name for herbal teas.

"When I was a child, we went to my grandmother's house every day after school for tea," said Ellyn Pelikan, a master gardener who grows many herbs for tea on her small flower farm in Sebastopol. "She and my mother would set the tea table and we would go to the herb garden and pick whatever we wanted that day for tea. It was from these two women that I learned the subtle nuances of 'taking tea.' This was our afternoon snack and talking time."

She says to this day she and her sister still love to "take tea" in her garden, using her mother's china teapot and delicate bone china teacups.

Essential in any tea garden, Pelikan advises, are mints — spearmint, peppermint, orange mint and lemon balm; lemon verbena, pineapple sage and rosemary.

Sheana Davis says she's not much of a gardener. But the Sonoma chef has been growing herbs for more than 20 years, using them not just for enhancing the flavor of food, but for creating sun teas that she drinks by the quart every day.

Her whole front yard is a jungle of plants like rosemary, whose leaves can be steeped in water for refreshing and hydrating tisanes. Along a fence in her backyard are raised beds full of more culinary herbs like lavender, that also make tasty tisanes.

Each morning Davis engages in the ritual of trolling her yard and plucking leaves that she puts in quart jars of fresh boiling water and leaves out in the sun. She drinks at least two quart jars of the infused water each day, which helps her keep hydrated at work without resorting to unhealthy sodas.

"Lemon verbena is, hands down, my favorite," she said of the highly-scented hardy perennial shrub that produces pale lilac flowers, grows to about five feet and doesn't require much water. The leaves contain a lemon-scented essential oil that makes for a fresh lemony tisane believed by many herbalists to promote sleep and help clear congestion.

"Designing and planting a tea garden is a simple task that will give you years of pleasure and countless cups of tea," said Pelikan. Many require little space, making them an ideal crop for apartment and condo dwellers. Many can be grown in pots. In the case of mints — spearmint, peppermint and orange mint — pots are best because they grow so rampantly, Pelikan said.

Master gardener Janet Barocco also routinely makes her own tisanes from plants she grows in her Santa Rosa garden, a food forest where edibles are harmoniously mixed in with ornamentals in a way more like what nature intended.

Both lemon balm and lemon verbena make for a citrusy tisane. She also likes Mediterranean herbs like thyme and sage, as well as German chamomile. She puts the leaves directly into the pot or in an infuser, pours boiling water over them and lets the liquid steep three to 10 minutes, so it gets "good and strong." If you leave it much longer, it will get bitter.

Barocco says the best time to cut your herbs is the morning when the essential oils are most potent — after the dew dries but before the sun gets hot. Rinse them lightly and then pull the leaves off the stems.

Barocco, who teaches classes in herbs, recommends pruning herbs regularly. They can be in partial shade but like any food crop, six to eight hours of sun a day is best, she says. They like moist soil, but not too moist.

Growing herbs for tea is an easy project, even for kids.

"You have the joy of seeing things grow from start to finish and you have the aromas and the flavors right there," she said. "It's the freshest you could get. Herbs don't take a lot of care, not like vegetables. They can thrive on a little bit of neglect and still give you a lot of bang for your buck."

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or 521-5204.