Grow your own herbal teas

I love tea. I mean, I really love it. With a collection of more than 30 types in my kitchen cupboard and a mini plantation of tea bushes in my Croydon back garden, I find it a shame that we Brits don’t have the variety found in tea’s homeland of Asia. Take floral scented teas, for example, where green tea leaves are paired up with aromatic flowers to boost their fragrance. Apart from the familiar jasmine types, many of these varieties, from uplifting chrysanthemum and osmanthus to delicate gardenia and honeysuckle, can be almost impossible to buy in the UK. Thank goodness, then, that all these flowers are just as easy to grow as they are to turn into a homespun version of the finest floral tea. So here’s my guide to making traditional Chinese floral-scented teas using very British flowers.

The jasmine varieties used to scent tea might belong to the subtropical species Jasminum sambac, which can be tricky to grow outdoors in Britain, but the gorgeous spring flowers of J polyanthum or J officinale are far hardier and will offer up more than you can ever use. Simply pop the flowers of three or four blooms in a pot of green tea (removing any stems from the jasmine which can be very bitter) and let it brew for five minutes. Sweetly scented honeysuckle flowers similarly add a refreshing fragrance to really good green or white teas. The type used most commonly in Asia is the white and yellow flowered species Lonicera japonica.

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As spring gives way to summer, gardenia flowers can be used to create cooling summer teas, often served chilled as an iced tea that far predates the more familiar US invention. This cold-brewed tea involves simply dunking loads of flowers into cold water alongside a generous amount of tea leaves and allowing them to soak in the fridge overnight. The low temperatures prevent many of the lighter fragrant compounds from evaporating, giving you a finer, more complex flavour. In the UK, ‘Kleim’s Hardy’ will grow well outdoors all year. If you are happy to kowtow to its one firm request of acid soil, it is a pretty fuss-free plant. The delicate peach-scented flowers of Osmanthus fragrans are used in exactly the same way, born on a beautiful shrub with bronze-tinted leaves. An excellent choice to grow across a south-facing wall for unrivalled summer scent and an excellent iced tea.

Chrysanthemums round off the tea-making season. Both varieties of C morifolium and C Indicum can be mixed with tea leaves or used on their own to make a sweet, calming brew. A sort of Asian equivalent of chamomile, but brighter. They have a strong enough fragrance to hold their own when paired with black tea or, my favourite, in a big pot of Earl Grey.

Email James at james.wong@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @Botanygeek