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Making Herbal Infusions: Herbal Teas with a Specific Nourishment Purpose

Making Herbal Infusions: Herbal Teas with a Specific Nourishment Purpose

herbal tea w tea quote

We eat food to nourish our bodies, specifically to nourish right down to the body cells. Medicinal infusions of herbs can be a wonderful nourishment addition to your daily lifestyle. They are easy to make and can be made for specific healing needs or for general tonic nourishment. Or both!

I recommend making infusions, not herbal teas. Herbal teas are when you steep the herbs for 3-5 minutes to enjoy the flavors of wonderful herbal plants. 

Medicinal Herbal Infusions are when you steep the herbs for at least 30 minutes. I recommend long steeping for 3-4 hours covered in a quart canning jar, in the covered pot, or in the oven on 170F.  Some people make their infusions in a crock pot on low heat. No boiling of the herbs unless it is the hard parts of the plant that you then just very gently, soft boil. This is all explained below.)

I also steep them overnight in the canning jar or the pot I boiled the water in. Always keep the pot covered once the herbs have been added and stirred into the hot water.  

You then strain the herbs in the AM.  When you want a cup, reheat the infusion very gently to preserve the nutrients. You can also enjoy the infusion at room temperature.

Refrigerate your extra herbal infusion and enjoy cool in hot weather or VERY gently warm. Never boil to reheat a medicinal infusion.

I invite you to NEVER use a Keurig® machine to make herbal medicinal infusions.

I also invite you to leave a microwave out of any medicine making process.

And, just for the record, Food IS Medicine.

Medicinal Herbal Infusions are empowering self-made medicine. I will use the word tea, for simplicity’s sake, from here on out but know I mean herbal infusion.

Turn your tea making into a self-healing ritual.

42135500 – healing herbs bunches, bottle of oil or tincture, hessian bags with dried marigold and clover. herbal medicine.

Avoid gulping down your tea to “get it over with” like you were “swallowing a pill.” Perhaps sit in a soothing place and sip, quietly. Visualize the herbal medicine flowing through your body, to the tissues and organs you are working on healing. See the “tea” bathing your body tissues with healing energy.


The tea making and drinking ceremony, ritual, is truly part of the healing experience. Remember to thank the Spirit of the Plant(s) that will be nourishing your health. This honoring of the Plant’s Vital Energy Medicine is healing Plant Spirit Medicine in itself. Savor it.

Making Infusions with soft Plant parts or premixed medicinal blends: 

  • Boil water. 
  • Measure leaf and flower herbs while water is heating. 
  • Use approximately 1 rounded teaspoon of dried herbs per 8 oz. cup of water. 
  • To make a stronger medicinal infusion, use more herbs. 
  • When the water reaches boiling; shut off heat source, add dried herbs, and gently stir into the hot water. 
  • Cover your pot immediately and let the infusion steep for at least 30 minutes before drinking any of the elixir of plant medicine love. 
  1. I make medicinal infusions at night so I can let the infusion steep, covered, overnight to make a deeply infused and strong medicinal tea
  2. I place herb pot in the oven and heat my oven to 200F. I shut off oven once it warms to 200F and leave it all overnight.
  3. Sometimes I set a timer to let it steep at 180F for an hour or so, then I shut oven off before I go to bed.
  4. In the AM, I strain and bottle my herbal medicine.
49967409 – healing herb and flower selection used in herbal medicine in heart shaped bowls with pollen and honey bee over oak background.

Making Decoctions:

If making infusions with seeds, roots, or barks, the hard parts of plants:

  • chop pieces as small as you can. I use a mortar & pestle for seeds. A blender or electric coffee grinder will grind up bark and roots. Break them into small pieces before you put them in the grinder. I only grind into rough powder, exactly the amount I am going to use, right before I use the herb parts to decoct them. 
  • When water is boiling, reduce heat to very gentle simmer.  Add herb pieces, cover, and simmer very, very gently for 20- 30 minutes. Yes, set a timer and check it to make sure it’s not boiling like crazy.
  • If you do not have a very gentle simmer option on your stove top: place in oven at 205F for 30 minutes.
  • After the 20 minutes stovetop OR 30 minutes in oven at 205F, shut off heat source and let the infusion steep, covered, overnight to make the strongest medicinal infusion.
  • If I did stove top steeping, I then place the pot of herbs in the oven and warm it to 205F. Once 205F is reached, I turn off the oven and leave the pot to steep overnight. Again, set a timer so you don’t forget and go off to bed with your oven left on.
  • I then strain and bottle in the AM.

***Do not let this herbal infusion decoction full rolling boil as it ruins the medicinal properties and nutrients in the herbal infused medicine.

When using these hard parts of herbs, it is a minimum of 1 tsp. per cup of water. I generally use a very well-rounded tsp. per cup of water. 

***If you are making mixed infusions with hard parts that need to simmer and leaves and flower parts of plants that do not need simmering:

  • Simmer the hard parts first. 
  • Turn off heat.
  • Add leaves / flowers and let it all steep together, covered, overnight. 
  • Strain in the AM.

I recommend making a quart each night and sipping 1 cup, three to four times throughout the day. 

I often will make ½ to 1 gallon at a time so I do not have to make medicinal infusions every night. I usually fill a quart canning jar, with the cold tea from the fridge, then I leave that quart jar on the counter overnight to enjoy at room temperature the next day.

When re-warming the tea do not over heat it. Never boil the pre-made tea. Do not make tea, heat tea water, or re-heat tea in a microwave.

48131537 – natural flower and herb selection used in herbal medicine in bowls and loose forming a circle over distressed wooden background.

Dosing with medicinal infusions & decoctions:

  • generally 2-4 cups a day depending on the herbs and the medicine’s purpose
  • A cup is 6-8 ounces of fluid, NOT a 12-16 ounce modern day coffee mug.
  • Always start with a low dose and slowly increase the dose to heal.
  • Low & Slow Herbal 🌱🌿🌱 Dosing Recommendation
  • Use herbal medicine 6 days a week and take one day off a week.
  • The concept of ‘more is better’ does not apply here. Most often herbal medicine is about *subtle shifts in healing not huge pendulum swings. Herbal medicine is not about shocking the body into change.

*An example of a pendulum swing in herbal medicine would be quickly stopping post-partum hemorrhaging or intervening with cayenne tincture if someone was having a stroke or heart attack. Giving herbs to have a huge impact, quickly, makes sense in these situations and then immediately seek emergency medical attention.

High Mineral Tearestores minerals to the body cells (Think bone health) that have been depleted from refined foods, toxins, stress, and life as we know it.   Stinging nettles, oat straw, alfalfa leaf, red raspberry leaf, mullein leaf, boneset, and comfrey* leaf are all good for helping with restoring the body’s minerals and as a bonus the tea will help with constipation (the extra fluid, from drinking the warm infusion, is dandy as well!)

Vary the herbs you use to make the tea, don’t use the same combination every time. Use 3-4 different herbs for each batch you make. I always use Stinging Nettles and either Mullein or Comfrey. I generally vary the other 2 herbs in my “formula” with every batch that I make. Variety is the spice of healing AND supports one’s body receiving a variety of the minerals and medicinal compounds the plants you are using have to offer. Important stuff, changing up things to keep the body nourished.

As always, I will remind you that all information is from my education, experience, and the wisdom gained from both my education and experience and not the Co-op’s information.

And, if you see editing mistakes, zap me an email and I will fix them. pyoumell@gmail.com

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