Maple leaves tea: how to cook? Fermented maple leaves

How to correctly ferment maple leaves and prepare delicious tea from them?

Content

Maple juice and syrup are favorite components for the preparation of various dishes in Canada and America. We have these products rare guests, and even few have heard about tea from wedge leaves. We will tell you about this delicious and healthy drink. We will share how to correctly ferment maple leaves and make delicious tea from them.

Maple leaves tea: fermentation

Supermarket shelves break from beautiful bags and boxes with a variety of tea. Often you have to be disappointed as a drink, since modern teas are literally “crammed” with synthetic flavor enhancers, dyes and other “fucking” ones that improve the commodity of the drink, but adversely affect the quality of the product.

Therefore, many prefer to stock up on organic natural tea prepared by their own hands. Grass, flowers, stems, shoots, leaves, kidneys of many plants allow you to prepare delicious teas that have healing and strengthening properties.

Preparing tea from maple leaves is not particularly difficult. Only some secrets and features of preparing this delicious and healing drink should be known.

Maple is one of the common trees in Russia. More than 20 types of this tree are found. The most common maple is acute or Russian. The tree is found in the city park zone and the surrounding forests.

How to prepare maple leaves correctly?

Maple leaves are harvested in the first half of summer. At this time, the leaves have not yet gained a rough consistency, but have aroma (when rubbing between the fingers), are socially and tender.
Do not collect leaves from trees growing inside megacities. Exhaust car gases, emissions of industrial enterprises and other pollution can be deposited in the leaves and be a source of intoxication.
Maple leaves are best harvested in the forest, away from roads and urban settlements.
You should not completely break the leaves from one tree, this can be damaged by green spaces and even lead to the death of trees.
Green leaves should be rinsed with running water, but not soaked them in water.
Leaves are laid out on dry clean fabric for several hours to dry, avoiding sunlight.

How is maple tea useful?

Maple tea has a diuretic and antiseptic effect. Infusion of brewed maple leaves is used for diseases of the kidneys and bladder.
Maple tea promotes bile and stimulates the liver.
Salicylic and gallic acids, anthocyans, tannins, flavonoids relieve inflammatory processes, have a wound healing and antipyretic effect.
In tea from maple leaves contains ascorbic acid and vitamin E. The drink enhances immunity and strengthens the body.
Maple infusion has antiviral and antibacterial properties. Tea is indicated for seasonal colds.
The brewed maple leaves remove the depressive state, tension and restore the nervous system. Tea reduces aggression and has a calming effect.
Maple leaves tea increases the energy capabilities of the body.

Why is the fermentation of maple leaves needed?

If you brew maple leavesLike ordinary tea, they retain beneficial qualities, but the taste of such an infusion is not very pronounced and has a straw-grassy shade and aroma.
To obtain a strong and bright taste, the maple leaves must undergo the process of enzyme. During this period, maple juice comes out of vacuo cells. The biochemical processes occurring in leaf plates contribute to the formation of a new quality of leaves that have a unique aroma and color.
Knowing the stages of preparing fermented tea, you can prepare the leaves for the future and enjoy the magnificent aroma of maple drink.

Stages of fermentation of maple leaves

The collected maple leaves, if necessary, are rinsed from dust and laid on the fabric for 2-3 hours for drying. At this stage of the process, the raw materials should not be overdried. Leaflets should become lethargic and lose moisture a bit.
With a large number of leaves, it is necessary to scroll the raw materials through a meat grinder. But it is better to roll each maple leaf with your palms in a tube. In this case, the integrity of the leaf plate is disturbed and cell juice begins to be released.
The leaves prepared in this way are laid out in glass, ceramic or enameled dishes and covered with a wet towel on top. At this stage, it is impossible to allow drying the upper layer of the leaves. Periodically, moisten a towel. The fermentation process should occur at a temperature above 25 degrees within three days.
As a result, the sheet mass is dark brown in color and acquires a pleasant fruit aroma. Next, tea is laid out on a baking sheet and placed in an oven for drying at a temperature of 90 degrees at an open oven. During drying, the leaves should be turned over for uniform drying of raw materials.
Properly dried tea should have a pleasant aroma of elite tea, dark color and crumble well.

Important: for obtaining green tea, raw materials are dried at a temperature of 60 degrees and below. High -quality black tea can be obtained by heating the sheet mass to 150 degrees.

Express method of fermenting maple leaves

To accelerate the process of tea fermentation, you can use the express method.

Grind maple leaves and put in a container.
Cover with a lid and languished on a minimum heat for 30 minutes until color changes.
Lay out the sheet in the pan and dried until cooked.
The prepared tea is ground through a colander and shifted into dry clean jars.

Important: to get granular tea, the sheet mass before drying is passed through a meat grinder. And for large -leaf tea, leaf plates should be twisted with palms into tubes.

How to store fermented tea?

Cooked maple leaves are stored in ceramic dishes, metal or glass jars, in foil bags
Tara should not pass light and air
Packages and banks should be small.
Moisture is not allowed

With proper storage, maple tea retains its excellent taste and aromatic properties during the year.

How to make tea from maple leaves?

Brew maple tea in the usual way. Recall the main stages of tea brewing.

The teapot is rinsed 2-3 times with boiling water.
Put tea in the calculation: 1-2 tablespoons per cup of tea.
Pour tea with boiling water.
The teapot is covered with a towel and insisted for 10-15 minutes.
Tea is poured into cups and served.

Important: maple tea can be brewed 2-3 times. At the same time, tea does not lose its beneficial and taste properties, and each time is revealed in a new way.

Flowers' petals give tea aroma and new taste notes

Monochas from maple leaves are good in itself. It has a rich color and a rich strong taste. To achieve different taste notes and shades, maple tea can be bathed with flower petals: cornflower, calendula, velvet, apple trees, tricolor violets, roses, jasmine.

You can add dried fruits of blackcurrant, cherries, raspberries, apples, chernomotye rowan, strawberries, strawberries. A wonderful and unique taste acquires maple tea in conjunction with dried leaves of fruit trees and berry shrubs.

So Apple leaves Give tea a sweet taste and apple aroma.
Cherry leaves They saturate tea with a strong tart aroma and give the drink a very pleasant taste.
Black -fruited rowan leaves They enhance the color of tea, giving tart with sourness.
Pear leaves Slightly shade the main aroma of maple tea, adding a special depth to the drink and leaving the sweetness of the aftertaste.
Strawberry and strawberry leaves They complement tea with their extraordinary aroma and sweet taste.
Black currant leaves They give tea a special aroma and a little sourness.

In addition, these compositions from leaves, colors and fruits will enrich maple tea with their useful vitamin complexes, which means they will contribute to the healing of the body.

You can experiment and select your favorite compositions of herbal teas, prepared independently at home. Each time you can get unusually delicious organic and healthy tea.