(First posted on the Canadian Gardening forum, but no one was sure and they suggested I ask here.)
Does anyone know if I have to do anything to rose hips if I want to save them to make tea?
Do they need to be split open somehow to make the tea?
Will drying preserve them? How about freezing?
I tried googling this and just couldn't find the info I wanted. Also posted this a couple days ago and it just didn't show up for some reason. Guess I pushed the wrong buttons.
TIA,
~marilyn
Rose hips
My mom would have us split them open and scrap the bristles out of the rose hips. We would dry the flesh of the hip or make preserves with it. A lot of work actually. If you are just going to make tea, and don't mind having to steep it longer, then I would think you could use the whole dried ones for that.
This article describes the same process:
Quoting:
Harvesting and Preparing Rose Hips
Rose hips ripen after they are touched by the first fall frost. The color of rose hips varies, but in general, orange hips are not quite ripe, and deep red hips are overripe. Overripe hips are sweet, but have lost much of their vitamin C.
Rose hips will have the most nutritional value when used immediately after harvesting. To prepare rose hips for tea, cut off the bloom stem, cut the hip in half, and scrape out the seeds and hairy pith. This can be very tedious with tiny hips, so you may want to save the smallest hips for jellies. Rose hips used for jellies don't need to be seeded or scraped. A half and half mixture of rose hip juice and apple juice makes a tasty jelly.
http://www.seedsofknowledge.com/rosehips.html
Thanks so much - that is pretty clear.