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This easy homemade blueberry herbal tea is made with fresh or frozen berries, plus basil or hibiscus for extra flavor. Serve this summer drink hot or cold!
Not long ago, my friend Nicole from Tea on the Trail wrote an article all about herbal tea.
In it, she talks about how she loves adding blueberries to her loose-leaf tea. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
Except in my version, I thought, what if the tea was all about the blueberry?
It sounded delightful.
This blueberry herbal tea recipe is adapted from my cranberry hibiscus tea recipe. Except cranberry tea is all about winter, and this tea is perfect for summer.
Want more homemade tea? Try making mint tea, thyme tea, pine needle tea, catnip tea, ginger tea and chamomile lavender sleep tea.
Can I Use Frozen Blueberries?
Absolutely!
Actually, even though I’m calling this a summer tea, you can make it year round if you use frozen berries.
Should I Use Basil or Hibiscus?
It’s totally up to you!
Hibiscus tea is one of my absolute favorite drinks ever, and the flavors pair perfectly with blueberry.
I buy dried hibiscus flowers online to use in tea. Make sure to buy food-grade (preferably organic) dried flowers, because non-food grade may have been sprayed with pesticides.
As much as I love hibiscus, though, I’m basically always looking for a way to use extra basil in the summer. Blueberry and basil are delicious together!
This recipe also works perfectly with frozen basil leaves.
Basil plants can be prolific, so the more basil recipes the better!
Looking for more basil recipes? Try making basil lemonade, basil vinegar, basil butter, lemon basil granita, basil pesto and strawberry basil sorbet.
How to Make Blueberry Herbal Tea
Start by adding blueberries and water to a pot.
Bring the water to a boil.
Once the water is boiling, I like to use a potato masher to squash some of the berries and help release the juices more quickly.
That’s a totally optional step though.
Simmer the berries for about ten minutes and then turn off the heat.
Add the hibiscus or basil and cover the pot. Let the herbs steep in the blueberry tea for about ten more minutes.
Finally, strain the berries and herbs out of the tea.
If you want an extra-clear tea, use cheesecloth. I simply use a mesh sieve.
Press in the berries with a wooden spoon to help push out all the juice.
Next, add a little sweetener (if you want).
You can serve the tea hot in tea cups or mugs, or…
Chill the tea in a pitcher in the fridge and then serve it cold!
I like icy cold tea in the summer.
This summer, stay cool with a tall glass of blueberry herbal tea and a bowl of watermelon sorbet.
Blueberry Basil Tea
Ingredients
- 6 cups water
- 4 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
- 1 cup fresh basil or ½ cup dried hibiscus
- ¼ cup sugar, honey, or other preferred sweetener (Optional)
Instructions
- Add water and blueberries to a large pot over medium-high heat, and bring to a boil.
- When the water begins to boil, use a potato masher to crush some of the berries as they cook.If you don't have a potato masher, you can skip this step.
- After 10 minutes, turn off the heat. Stir in the basil or hibiscus and cover the pot. Steep for 10 minutes.
- Strain the liquid through a fine mesh sieve or strain through cheesecloth. Use the back of a wooden spoon to push extra juice from the berries.Tip: Cheesecloth will yield the clearest juice without sediment, but a fine mesh sieve will catch most of the sediment.
- If desired, add sweetener to taste. Serve hot, or chill in the fridge and serve cold.Store leftover tea in the fridge and use within a week.
Great flavor! We made the hibiscus version and also added a little hibiscus simple syrup as sweetener, and it was lovely. Super easy to make. Would be neat to try the basil version too!