This is my first year growing chamomile .. I grew the roman Double flowered variety i bought at a local nursery .. Ive been collecting and drying the flowers for a while now and thought I could make some tea out of them. The flowers have smelled great, but when I made the tea today all I got was this horrible chemical .. cant describe it... overpowering taste. Luckily I didnt swallow much.
So what went wrong ? The flower bed is organic .. so no one has sprayed it or put anything chemical onto it. There are some weeds that are running rampant... I made sure no weedy parts got into the tea .. but is it possible that growing so close they could have contaminated eachother ?
Only other idea that comes to mind is that I did leave stems on the flowers... do chamomile stems have a horrible flavor ?
Any help on this would be awesome.
chris
chamomile tea .. what went wrong?
I grow German chamomile ( matricaria chamomilis) for tea, and roman chamomile (anthemic nobilis) more for fragrance (aromatherapy). They are supposed to be able to be used interchangeably, but I find the German chamomile has a better flavour for tea.
What jumps into my mind is are you sure it's chamomile? (I don't mean that to be insulting, just a preliminary question -- nurseries can make mistakes, and many flowering plants look like chamomile.) When you crush it, does it smell like apples?
yeah .. im pretty sure ... it has the same smell.
Im stumped
chris
It may be the stems. I'm including a link on harvesting chamomile for use.
This article does mention that german chamomile is sweeter and that roman chamomile has a more "medicinal" taste. Perhaps that's a way of saying "chemical taste".
The blossoms are sweeter that the leaves and stems. Try brewing the dried blossoms only and see if the taste is different.
http://www.gardenguides.com/articles/relaxingchamomile.htm
It may also be something that varies between cultivars... there are some mints I wouldn't want to brew tea from.
It's hard to go through all that work of collecting and drying blossoms to find you don't have a tea you want to drink... Hopefully you'll have better luck using just the blossoms. If not, don't toss out your dried chamomile -- I'll bet it will still work great for brewing, diluting, and using to water seedlings (weak chamomile tea is said to help prevent "damping off," and my seedlings love it).
oh thats a great tip .. thanks
I did go out and snap off a stem to taste ... It is the stems .
I also tasted .. just a very small touch to the tongue .. one of the weeds near by ... It is the chamomile stems
So problem solved ... I just never thought they would taste so aweful
Chris
Hi
I also grow german chamomile for tea. The roman is more for drying and fragrance as garden_mermaid stated. I have some real great tea recipes if you would like to try them.
Dee
ooohh, Dee... Please post some of your "great tea recipes" over on this thread, http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/614920/ Let's bump this topic up and see what other tea recipes folks have come up with this summer!
Chris, thanks for learning a lesson for ALL of us! ;]