Properly dry currant leaves. How to dry currant leaves for the whole winter and preserve vitamins
Optimal collection time
The time of collecting currant leaves is of great importance. It is important to harvest raw materials during a period when the greatest amount of useful substances is concentrated in the plant juices. Only such material can eventually turn into a medicine. Experts believe that the most correct time to collect currant leaves is in August and lasts until September.
How to properly collect currant leaves?
It is recommended to start collecting in sunny weather. In such conditions, the sheet will be the cleanest and this will avoid additional processing in the form of washing and subsequent drying. You need to choose large leaves, but they should not be old, which can be determined by the state of the veins and some other signs. You should also avoid picking spoiled, withered or pest-damaged specimens. At the same time, the leaves growing at the top of the shoot or, conversely, in its lower part, cannot be touched, otherwise next season you may not see this branch bear fruit. Therefore, only the middle leaves need to be collected. They should be torn without petioles and berries - only the leaf plate.
Let's start listing:
Drying methods - grandma's way
The most common way to dry currant leaves at home is to dry them in the open air. The most suitable place is a shed, although an attic with good ventilation can also be adapted for these purposes. So, at the chosen place, first spread newspaper or lay plywood. Collected and carefully sorted leaves are distributed over their surface in a uniform, not too thick layer. The required duration of the drying process very much depends on the prevailing conditions - temperature, humidity and air exchange. Adjusted for all factors, this can be from 3 days to a week. In this case, readiness is determined by external signs - the sheet should be dry, but not brittle and not crumble at the first touch. This result can only be achieved if the raw materials are not in contact with direct rays of the sun.
Drying methods - in the oven
Using this method can significantly reduce the processing time of raw materials - up to several hours. The leaves are laid out on a dry baking sheet in one even layer and placed on the lowest shelf of the oven, where the heat will not be so significant. The temperature in the oven should be minimal - if it is too high, the sheet quickly collapses and loses its beneficial properties. Also, some experts recommend keeping the oven door open, which not only allows you to regulate the degree of heating of the raw materials, but also provides additional air flow.
Drying methods - special ovens
In this case, special ovens or drying chambers are used. With the help of such devices, green medicinal raw materials are dried on an industrial scale; only units of smaller power and size are used at home. Special baskets or sieves act as loading containers, and the processing temperature can reach 100 degrees. The use of special equipment allows you to dry herbs, including currant leaves, as efficiently as possible, minimizing the loss of medicinal properties. But for this you need to comply with a number of conditions, which, as a rule, are described in great detail in the instructions supplied with the device.
Storage of dried raw materials
At the end of drying, the resulting raw materials are inspected, sorted, removing damaged leaves, and then cut into small fragments so that they can be conveniently used for brewing. Next, the resulting mass is lightly fried in the oven - this will preserve the natural color of the material, avoid darkening, and also make the aroma more intense.
In conclusion, let us recall that currant leaf has a wide range of healing properties. For example, it contains a very high concentration of vitamin C, the lack of which in the body becomes the main reason for the decrease in the body’s immunity. In folk medicine it is used as a diuretic, diaphoretic and anti-inflammatory agent. Tea made from dry currant leaves is an excellent remedy for preventing exacerbations of chronic diseases of the kidneys and urinary system, and Tibetan healers recommend drinking it regularly not only for colds and general malaise, but also for anemia and hemorrhagic diathesis.
Drying is the easiest way to prepare leaves for the winter. And preparing dried currant leaves for the winter is not only tasty, but also healthy. After all, everyone knows how delicious and aromatic homemade teas are. Without chemicals, without any flavors or additives.
Black currant leaves not only have a diaphoretic, diuretic and anti-inflammatory effect, but also help remove uric acid from the body. It is very good to drink tea to prevent kidney and urinary tract diseases. And if you follow the advice of Tibetan medicine, then this tea is very good to drink for colds, anemia, hemorrhagic diathesis and general ailments. Black currant leaves have a high concentration of vitamin C.
It is very important to correctly determine the collection time. Thus, it is recommended to collect blackcurrant leaves from August to September in good sunny weather, so that they do not have to be washed and dried. You need to take large, but not old leaves. It is not recommended to pick damaged or defective ones. Also, only the middle ones are picked, leaving the top and bottom ones, so as not to interfere with fruiting in the next season. Take only leaf blades, without cuttings and berries. Drying of raw materials is carried out either at home or in production. You can dry it at home using grandma’s old method – outdoors, in the shade. But, of course, the most ideal place would be an attic or shed. To dry at home, you just need to spread the leaves on a flat newspaper surface and leave for several days, or even a week. At the same time, once a day they are mixed and inspected for spoilage. Can be used in the oven or in a dehydrator for vegetables and fruits.
Under industrial conditions, drying is carried out in two ways. The first is the leaf rolling method. This process is carried out using special machines in which the leaves are dried, rolled and immediately crushed. Of course, you can grind blackcurrant leaves at home, by hand. The usual method is also used - drying currant leaves in. Drying is carried out in baskets or sieves at a temperature of about one hundred degrees. After drying, the raw materials are carefully examined, then cut into tea leaves and fried in the oven. This is done in order to avoid loss of natural color and darkening. This process produces a richer currant aroma.
It is recommended to store dried leaves in fabric bags, hermetically sealed jars or bags. If you follow all the technological recommendations, you will get a very aromatic, tasty and healthy tea. Dried currant leaf can be brewed as a separate drink or added to black or green tea. And in general, there are a lot of recipes for brewing tea with currant leaves. Of course, the most popular are mixed teas, where several varieties of dried leaves are used, or berries are simply added.
It is not difficult to make a vitamin drink from dried currant leaves. To do this, you need to pour twenty-five grams of raw material with three hundred milligrams of water acidified with lemon juice. Place the resulting infusion in a dark place for a day, and then drink in small portions throughout the day. True, such a drink should only be drunk fresh, that is, make a new portion every day. But it is not recommended to abuse such drinks and teas. Remember, even the most useful thing, in large doses and if used inappropriately, can harm your health.
Everyone knows black currant berries, but few know that the leaves of the bush are also of considerable value. Just like berries, they contain the lion's share of vitamin C, as well as a host of other vitamins and elements. Tea made from blackcurrant leaves has diaphoretic, diuretic, anti-inflammatory properties and perfectly removes uric acid from the body. It is especially useful to drink this drink for people with kidney and gallbladder diseases, weakened immune systems, as well as for anemia or simply to increase vitality. In addition, the wonderful aroma of currant leaves allows you to prepare a stunningly aromatic drink from them, which you can enjoy on chilly autumn or winter evenings.
How to prepare currant leaves for tea and dry them correctly in order to preserve all the beneficial and tasteful qualities of the product? We will talk about this and how to properly prepare tea from dried leaves below in our material.
Preparing currant leaves for tea
Currant leaves for tea should be collected in good dry weather in August and early September, when the berries are harvested and the fall period has not yet begun. Fresh, green specimens without yellowed areas or various types of damage are perfect for this purpose. You should not collect leaves at the base or at the very top of the branch, so as not to harm the subsequent harvest of currant berries. Attention should be paid to those leaves that are located in the center of the stems. It is also not recommended to pick the raw material along with the stalks; it is better to use scissors and cut the leaf blades without them.
How to properly dry currant leaves for tea?
The collected currant leaves should be spread on a clean piece of fabric or a sheet of paper in a dry, ventilated area. The ideal option in a private building would be an attic. You can also place the workpiece under a canopy in the shade, or on a balcony, but in this case you should cover it with gauze to protect it from flies and other insects.
Depending on temperature conditions, drying may take three to ten days. From time to time you should mix the leaves, review the preparation and get rid of questionable specimens. If temperature conditions or other factors do not allow you to dry currant leaves the old-fashioned way, then you can use a fruit and vegetable dryer or just an oven for this purpose. In this case, the temperature must be maintained at eighty degrees, and the raw materials must be mixed from time to time.
After drying, the currant leaves should be crushed in any available way and placed in a fabric bag or paper bags.
To make tea, you can use dried blackcurrant leaves in their pure form or combine them with dried mint, linden, jasmine flowers or other compositions of fruit and berry leaves. In addition, with this preparation you can simply supplement classic black or green tea, filling it with valuable properties, or prepare a drink with the addition of berries, both dried and fresh or frozen.
Currant fruit teaIngredients:
Preparation
Place the dried leaves in a heated porcelain teapot and fill with water heated to a boil. Cover the vessel with a lid and a terry towel on top and let the contents sit for twenty to thirty minutes. After time, use the resulting infusion as tea leaves, pouring it into a cup and diluting it with boiling water. We complement the taste of the drink with honey or granulated sugar if desired and enjoy.
Herbal teas from raspberry and black currant leaves have long been drunk in Rus' not only as warming aromatic drinks, but also as healing infusions. In order for such a drink to retain all its beneficial properties as much as possible, you need to know how to properly collect and dry currant and raspberry leaves for tea.
At different times of the year, greens contain different amounts of nutrients. In currant leaves, their maximum concentration occurs at the beginning of flowering.
Depending on the currant variety and region, this time may vary, so it is better to start picking when the flowers appear. Raw materials are collected in dry, warm weather in the morning, when there is no dew.
It is advisable to prepare raspberry greens for tea for the winter in the first 2-3 weeks of June. At this time, the leaves have the greatest value: the plant directs all its forces to the development of green mass, and not to the formation of fruits. It is better to collect raw materials before flowering begins.
By collecting leaves during the flowering process, you can harm the plant or get low-quality products and be left without the lion's share of the raspberry harvest.
The ideal period for collecting is from 10 to 11 am, when the foliage is dry, but not yet warmed by the sun, and there is no moisture or dew on the bush. It’s good if it rained shortly before harvesting and washed the plants, since you can’t wash the plucked leaves: after being moistened, they can rot.
You can pluck the leaves with your hands or cut them with pruners or scissors, being careful not to damage the trunk. You cannot pick all the leaves from a branch.
The period of the beginning of flowering of raspberries and currants
In the southern regions, black currants bloom in the first half of May, in the middle zone - in the third decade of May-early June, 1-2 weeks later - in the Urals and Siberia, where early ripening varieties are mainly grown.
Raspberry blossoms in the southern region begin in mid-May and last throughout June; in the middle zone, raspberries bloom 2 weeks later: from the beginning of June.
Influence of lunar cycles
Our ancestors have long preferred to collect potions on the waxing moon, when the most useful substances are concentrated in leaves and herbs. It is necessary to harvest tender and thin young leaves that are shiny, whole, beautiful, not dirty and not affected by pests and diseases.
How to dry it?
Selecting a location
The location of the raw materials for drying should be ventilated, dry, warm, not illuminated by direct sunlight. This is necessary so that the material is not affected by mold, and the sun does not destroy the chlorophyll and beneficial elements in it.
Traditional drying of raspberries and currants
It is undesirable to use newspaper to dry plant materials: the substances contained in printing ink, when absorbed into the material, can saturate it with harmful elements.
The heap needs to be turned over from time to time to ensure even drying. At the same time, it is important not to forget to check whether they are affected by mold. This is done until the leaves become brittle. This indicates the readiness of the raw materials, which can be sent for storage.
The weather in May or early June is sometimes not pleasant with sun and warmth; it often rains, filling the air with dampness. Leaves cannot be dried in air under such conditions, but you can use an oven, although with this drying method they are deprived of some useful elements.
The leaves are placed on a baking sheet in one layer and placed in an oven preheated to +100⁰C.
After 1.5 hours, the temperature is reduced to +50⁰C and the mass is dried until ready. When choosing drying using an oven, do not forget that the door should always be slightly open to evaporate the released moisture and allow air to circulate. The leaves should not be baked, but rather dried.
To dry currant and raspberry leaves at home, you can also use an electric dryer. Still, the natural method is preferable, in which the leaves dry completely within 4-5 days.
Dried leaves can be stored for about a year in linen bags or tightly sealed containers. To store any dried plant material, a cool, unlit place away from tea, coffee and spices is suitable, perhaps a distant cabinet in the kitchen.
Fermentation of raspberries and currants
To get a fragrant tea preparation at home, it is not necessary to dry currant and raspberry leaves according to our grandmothers’ recipe. In order for herbal tea with currant and raspberry leaves to not have the taste of hay and to preserve their natural aroma, it is necessary that the leaves, like real black tea, undergo fermentation - light fermentation.
At the first stage, you only need to slightly dry the leaves so that they lose some of their moisture and wilt. The material must not be dried, otherwise fermentation will not occur. The blade of the finished leaf should be flaccid and soft, and the petiole should be flexible and not brittle.
The next day, you need to collect 8-10 pieces of greens in piles and, rolling them between your palms, roll them into sausages. During this procedure, juice should be released from them, under the influence of which fermentation will occur.
There is also a less labor-intensive “mechanized” method, in which the leaves are passed through a meat grinder. In this case, it is better to use an old mechanical machine with the largest grid so that the leaves are not crushed too much.
The darkened leaves twisted into sausages are placed in layers in a deep enamel bowl, covered with a wet, clean cloth and left for 6-12 hours in a warm place.
Using the second option, transfer the greens to a bowl, pressing lightly with your hands. The moisture content of the fabric should be checked regularly and re-wetted when dry. The fermentation process optimally takes place at a temperature of +22-+26°C. When the temperature rises or falls, fermentation stops or does not proceed as expected.
You should not spread the leaves in a thin layer, as the fermentation will be of poor quality. The end of the process is checked by the aroma released by the leaves: the smell of grass disappears, a pronounced floral-fruity aroma appears. The finished mass becomes greenish-brown.
The leaves should then be laid out on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and dried in the oven for an hour at a temperature of +100⁰C.
Beneficial properties of raspberry and currant tea
Raspberry leaves contain a large amount of tannins. An infusion of them is used to treat diarrhea and inflammation of the oral mucosa.
Infusion and tea from raspberry leaves cleanse the blood, strengthen the gums, and are used for skin rashes and gastrointestinal diseases. Vitamin C contained in raspberry leaves is effective in treating colds.
Tea made from raspberry leaves is especially useful during pregnancy: it helps strengthen the walls of the uterus, prevents miscarriages, and has a beneficial effect on the reproductive system.
Raspberry leaves contain a lot of iron, magnesium, potassium, and B vitamins. Having a complex effect, these substances relieve pain in the legs, nausea due to toxicosis, and give a sound, restful sleep.
The buds and leaves of currants are rich in vitamin C, which contain phytoncides and essential oils that give them a unique aroma. They contain potassium salts and rare vitamin P.
In the form of infusions and teas, currant leaves are used as a diuretic, analgesic, tonic, and anti-inflammatory agent. They contain substances that protect against pneumonia.
To enhance the healing properties, it is recommended to drink tea made from raspberry and black currant leaves with honey and milk or honey and lemon.
How to dry currant leaves for tea? Everyone knows the beneficial properties of black currant berries, but few know that the leaves of the bush also have considerable value. Just like berries, they contain the lion's share of vitamin C, as well as a host of other vitamins and elements. Tea made from blackcurrant leaves has diaphoretic, diuretic, anti-inflammatory properties and perfectly removes uric acid from the body. It is especially useful to drink this drink for people with kidney and gallbladder diseases, weakened immune systems, as well as for anemia or simply to increase vitality. In addition, the wonderful aroma of currant leaves allows you to prepare a stunningly aromatic drink from them, which you can enjoy on chilly autumn or winter evenings. How to prepare currant leaves for tea and dry them correctly in order to preserve all the beneficial and tasteful qualities of the product? We will talk about this and how to properly prepare tea from dried leaves below in our material. Preparing currant leaves for tea Currant leaves for tea should be collected in good dry weather in August and early September, when the berries have been harvested and the fall period has not yet begun. Fresh, green specimens without yellowed areas or various types of damage are perfect for this purpose. You should not collect leaves at the base or at the very top of the branch, so as not to harm the subsequent harvest of currant berries. Attention should be paid to those leaves that are located in the center of the stems. It is also not recommended to pick the raw material along with the stalks; it is better to use scissors and cut the leaf blades without them. How to properly dry currant leaves for tea? The collected currant leaves should be spread on a clean piece of fabric or a sheet of paper in a dry, ventilated area. The ideal option in a private building would be an attic. You can also place the workpiece under a canopy in the shade, or on a balcony, but in this case you should cover it with gauze to protect it from flies and other insects. Depending on temperature conditions, drying may take three to ten days. From time to time you should mix the leaves, review the preparation and get rid of questionable specimens. If temperature conditions or other factors do not allow you to dry currant leaves the old-fashioned way, then you can use a fruit and vegetable dryer or just an oven for this purpose. In this case, the temperature must be maintained at eighty degrees, and the raw materials must be mixed from time to time. After drying, the currant leaves should be crushed in any available way and placed in a fabric bag or paper bags. To make tea, you can use dried blackcurrant leaves in their pure form or combine them with dried mint, linden, jasmine flowers or other compositions of fruit and berry leaves. In addition, with this preparation you can simply supplement classic black or green tea, filling it with valuable properties, or prepare a drink with the addition of berries, both dried and fresh or frozen. Next, we offer a basic recipe for making tea from blackcurrant leaves, which can be modified at your discretion by adding other ingredients. Currant fruit tea Ingredients: currant leaves – 2 tbsp. spoons; filtered water – 520 ml; honey or granulated sugar - to taste. Preparation Place the dried leaves in a heated porcelain teapot and fill with water heated to a boil. Cover the vessel with a lid and a terry towel on top and let the contents sit for twenty to thirty minutes. After time, use the resulting infusion as tea leaves, pouring it into a cup and diluting it with boiling water. We complement the taste of the drink with honey or granulated sugar if desired and enjoy.