Wild Strawberry Tea
As Spring explodes around us, it’s a wonderful time of year to interact with your local environment and get to know your neighbourhood plants.
In this micro blog I wanted to share with you a quick nature fix I took, by collecting some wild strawberry leaves on my walk with the family and making a simple cup of wild green tea.
Wild Strawberry : Fragaria Vesca
Wild strawberry is a beautiful little plant from the Rose family that can be found often as a spreading carpet in dappled shade, whether that’s under a birch grove or within long grass.
The hairy leaf stems protrude from an underground root network to lift the leaves off the floor. These three leaves emanate from a single shared point at the end of the stem, and are neatly toothed with a distinct point at the end of each tooth. The leaves are a glossy green on top, pale underneath, and clear even veins that run parallel to each other from the centre rib to the tip of each tooth.
When the suns warm and the weathers fine they show off a white flower, with 5 separate petals as the leaf bracts are visible between the petals.
Wild Strawberry Leaf Tea
Click on the photo’s below to see the full details.
Review
I find the smell of fresh strawberry leaves to be quite sweet although that doesn’t really translate through to the final flavour of the tea. The tea is a mild, fresh, green tea with a very subtle astringent mouth feel.
I’m fortunate to live within 5 minutes of a huge carpet of wild strawberries, and pick only a few when the mood takes me. I’ll try and beat the slugs and mice to the berries later in the year and follow up with perhaps a jam.
I hope this might inspire you to get to know a plant in your local area a little better, even if you don’t end up drinking it! Let know if you find anything interesting.
All the best
JD