Mamaki Tea

"C" asked how I make mamaki tea. I do it rather simply and don't really have a set recipe. 

First, a hint about drying the leaves. I've discovered that they do better when dried upside down. They end up looking better for resale purposes. 

This time of year I usually use fresh leaves for tea making, saving my dry leaves for when I can't harvest fresh ones. I pick the larger leaves for drying, leaving the smaller ones behind. The large leaves are easier to deal with in the dehydrator, that's all. Just easier to handle.

Once the bigger leaves are removed, there are plenty of small leaves on the branch. I'll strip those off to make fresh tea. 

Yup, I totally denude the branch, only throwing away the bad looking leaves. (The bad leaves plus the denuded branch end up in the compost bin or as mulch.) 

Above, yes that's Noodles under the tree. He's learning to be a good farm dog by following me around. I like to have one of the farm dogs with me as I work about the place. 

I'll take my glass quart cup with me when I'm picking leaves for our own tea, and fill it to the top with leaves. I don't pack the leaves at all, but let them lay naturally and "fluffy". Before I add hot water I'll pick a few sprigs of mint and add it to the mamaki leaves. We both like a hint of mint in this tea. 

Next I'll add boiling water and, using a spoon, press the leaves down into the hot water. Then I'll let it sit until it's cool, though often I'll make this first thing in the morning and don't get back to it until lunchtime. By then to color of the tea is quite dark.

This is a concentrate. We add water to make the preferred taste. I like my tea to be weak while hubby likes his strong. So it's easier for us to store the concentrate in the frig and mix up a glass of tea as needed and to the desired strength. 

Hubby and I like drinking tea once a day. It's a pleasurable habit. But other people drink it for its health effects. While we don't see any difference in ourselves when we drink mamaki tea, I have had people tell me that it effects them in various ways. Hawaiian noticed that mamaki affected certain people in different ways, too. Thus it is one of the many Hawaiian medicinal plants grown in my area. Since it has medicinal properties, it would be wise to be cautious when first trying mamaki. 

Sun Oven - Dehydrator

My homemade solar dehydrated has reached the end of it days. In fact, I've been holding it together with duct tape for months and I'm fed up fussing with it. But it served me well. It was an early experiment from years ago made out of repurposed materials (that is - junk), so it cost me nothing and taught me a lot. Time to move on. 

I've been toying with the idea of making another solar dehydrator, but recently another blogger (5acresandadream.com) held a free webinar on Sun Ovens. Hummmmm. So I attended. Conclusion -- I think the Sun Oven would work as a dehydrator although it wouldn't handle the volume that I was use to. The webinar offered a nice discount, so I took the bait and spent some money. I figured that if it turned out to be junkily made, I'd send it back. Well it turns out that I like the product. It's just a shame that I don't get reliable sun here, or I'd use it every day for cooking. That's something to look forward to during the next drought year. 

My first sunny morning I gave the Sun Oven a test run. I'm harvesting mamaki leaves right now and need to dry them. After preparing the leaves, they were spaced on the dehydrator shelves. The oven door was closed but slightly propped open as directed.

Sun Oven was aligned to the sun.....

Here's another view....

The oven quickly heated up, and I mean QUICK. Yikes! Run and get something to hold the door open more. I ended up using a little toothpick jar. 

Before the morning sun disappeared, the leaves were dry. Rather than realigning the oven's position every 30 minutes, I let it be. This kept the temperature lower so as not to burn the leaves. 

All in all, this experiment worked out just fine. I figure I could dry 2-3 batches of leaves each morning, if I wanted. That's ok. And it turns out that the Sun Oven dries more leaves per day than my other solar dehydrator design. The only thing I need to still work out is getting the temperature control fine tuned. 

Next, I plan to try drying other things -- fruits, veggies, macnuts. If this handles the macnuts, then it will be worth every penny I spent on it. 

Mamaki -Homegrown Tea

We have a tree growing wild on the farm that is called mamaki. It is endemic to Hawaii and historically has been used for a variety of medicinal purposes. But I just like using mamaki as a pleasant tea to drink. A tea made from the leaves is mild and tastes like a traditional green tea without any bitterness. 

In the above photo, the plant is wet from a rain. That's why the leaves look shiny. Mamaki is related to nettles and you can see the similarity in the leaves. Happily there are no stinging hairs! 

Because I have numerous mamaki plants around the place, I haven't bothered to formally cultivate it. Baby trees just happen to pop up here be there, and if it happens in a good location, I'll mark the spot so that I don't accidently hack the little sapling down. My original tree came up right beside the house, not the best place for a small tree.

 But I wanted the mamaki, so I left it there. It's roots came out from the base of one of the house foundation blocks, so I was adverse to digging it up to move it. Thus it stayed. But now I plan to hack it down to the ground after I harvest all the good leaves. I've got plenty of others growing around, most likely keiki from this very first tree since the birds eat the fruits and thus spread the seeds. 

Ok, the tree is destined to go. But  first I'm harvesting the leaves for future cups of tea. I plan to do the harvest over a period of several days, simply because I don't have enough room to dry all those leaves at once. 

I'm picking the nicest, healthiest looking leaves and tips of branches. The tips I'll dry "as it", then once dry & crispy I'll crumble off the leaves leaving behind the stems. For the individual leaves, I'll snip off the stems before drying. 

Once washed, I place the leaves on a rack well above my woodstove. One of my friends gave me this rack, an old kitchen pot hanger. I find it works great for drying stuff above the stove.........wet hats, shoes, jackets, etc. I often leave my bamboo steamer there so that it doesn't get moldy. 

When I have food to dry, I lay out a clean towel across the rack. The mamaki leaves dry beautifully this way. 

Once dry, I'll store them in a plastic ziplock bag in the freezer until I need some for tea. Mamaki tea with a leaf of mint added makes a wonderful cup of tea.