Make your beverages as nutritious as your food by using herb teas. If you are one of those people who has trouble drinking enough liquids (especially once sodas, sweet beverages, and pasteurized fruit juices are mostly a thing of the past), having drinks such as this in your refrigerator or at work may help. Many herbs though safe to use as teas are bitter or strong tasting–this mixture is not. It’s easy to get children to drink it if you add 1 Tbsp. of honey and then sweeten to taste with the stevia.

Nettles are full of minerals and have a calming effect. Rose hips have powerful anti-oxidants. For added zip, add the ginger which has anti-inflammatory properties. The Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op is the best place to get bulk dried herbs and spices that have not been irradiated. They have the nettles, dried cut rose hips, and fresh ginger root plus the stevia liquid extract. For a larger selection and online or phone orders, visit Frontier Herb Coop .  Get a 4-inch diameter metal screen strainer to make straining herbs easy.

Nettle Rose Hip Tea

Use 2 pyrex measuring cups or glass mason jars for the teas. Place 2 Tbsp.dried nettle leaves in one jar and pour in 1 cup of boiling water. In the other jar put 1 heaping Tbsp. of rose hips, 1 tsp. of grated fresh ginger root (optional) and 1 cup of boiling water. Let them steep for 20 minutes.

Strain the nettle tea into a quart jar. Dispose of the herbs. Blend the rose hip-ginger tea mixture (don’t strain it yet) in a blender. Now strain this into the nettle tea. As you do this, press the pulp against the strainer with a spoon to get out the soft pulp and scrap it off the bottom of the strainer with a spoon or spatula and into the quart jar. Dispose of what’s left in the strainer—the skins and seeds. Add the juice of 1 lemon or 1 lime and stevia extract to sweeten to taste if desired. Add enough water to the tea to make a full quart. Serve warm or cold. Keep refrigerated.