Dried mint leaves and Juniper berries. Photo by Petr Skrypnikov.
Most berries, fruits, roots, flowers, and dried plants—both greens and herbs—can be used to season food or create tea blends. Cities and suburbs are rich in plants suitable for making flavorful dark and light teas. Fermented teas can be made using leaves from any edible fruit tree or bush with edible berries, or even from coniferous tree needles. Herbs, however—thyme, mint, lemon balm, oregano, etc.—work better dried than fermented, because the fermentation process drastically alters their taste and aroma. When dried, they can be added to already prepared fermented teas to enhance flavor and aroma.
Mint and lemon balm. Gelendzhik.
Making fermented tea requires large quantities of leaves. It is best to choose a variety of plants as your base and use them to create a tea blend. Suitable leaves include raspberry, currant, wild strawberry, blueberry, rosehip, blackberry, stone bramble, mountain ash, hawthorn, mulberry, sea buckthorn, apple, shadbush, cherry plum, and cherry, as well as pine needles. Historical experience shows that fireweeds are best preserved as a single-ingredient tea. (Translator’s note: this traditional Russian fermented tea is known as Ivan Tea.)
Lay harvested leaves out on a dry surface in the shade and allow to dry for a few hours. To make tea pellets, pass your pile of plants through a meat grinder; for loose-leaf tea, rub each leaf to soften and then roll it up with your fingers. The point of this procedure is to break down the leaf’s internal structure and force it to release its juices. Place the ground or rolled-up leaves in a container and put a weight on top. The leaves will ferment like this for 24 hours. Next, spread them out on a baking tray and dry in an oven at minimum temperature with convection on or the oven door cracked open. The leaves can also be dried on a stovetop in a pan. Divide the tea into small servings, place in gauze bags, and allow to dry by hanging the bags in a dry, ventilated area. Dried herbs, berries, or flowers can be added to the finished tea.
Fireweeds. Dmitrovskoye, Moscow oblast.
Pine tree. Schepkinsky forest, Rostov-on-Don.
Hawthorn. Schepkinsky forest, Rostov-on-Don.
Lemon balm, Gelendzhik.
Oregano. Schepkinsky forest, Rostov-on-Don.
Redcurrant. Dmitrovskoye, Moscow oblast.
Stone berry. Dmitrovskoye, Moscow oblast.
Cranberry. Dmitrovskoye, Moscow oblast.
This work was commissioned for the exhibition “I don’t know whether the Earth is spinning or not...”, curated by Francesca Altamura and Lizaveta Matveeva for the VII Moscow International Biennale for Young Art.