Tomorrow, May 5th, is the seventh annual Herb Day.

Unlike National Salad Month, Herb Day is a grassroots, international movement with the intention of spreading knowledge and awareness of the amazing powers of herbs.

In celebration of Herb Day I want to share with you my favorite drink these days.

Lemongrass Tea

Our sweet neighbor gave us a large bag of dried lemongrass that he brought back with him from Haiti.  At first I was a little perplexed as to what to do with it all but once I started making this tea the bag is quickly diminishing and I’ll have to go find some more soon!

I’ve always loved the unique flavor of lemongrass but usually associate it with savory, spicy  Thai food.   I stuck with the Thai theme for this tea and brewed it up with ginger and finished it with lots of lime.

The tea will keep in the fridge for up to a week so I make big batches at a time.

In my biggest stock pot I throw in a few small handfuls of the dried lemongrass and lots of slivers of fresh ginger.  No need to peel the ginger, just give it a good wash.  Next I fill the pot with water and bring it to a boil, then simmer for about 10 minutes.

I don’t add any sweetener but if you wanted to, now would be the time, while the tea is still hot enough to melt the honey or dissolve the stevia or sugar.

Once the pot of tea has cooled I use a funnel to fill my Ikea pop top jars and store in the fridge.

I usually go ahead and make another, weaker, pot of tea with the ginger and lemongrass but it can also just be tossed in the garbage or compost at this time.

This tea kept reminding me of something I’d had before and I just realized what it is; emoliente!  I drank emoliente from street vendors in Peru and once or twice bought packs of herbs and mixed it up in our little apartment in Miraflores.

I found a lovely little video tutorial on making tea, check it out if you are more of a visual learner.  This women has also convinced me that I need to grow lemongrass, especially since it acts as an insect repellent!

Other cool properties of lemongrass:

• high in antioxidants
• diuretic
• relieves gas and stomach discomfort
• antimicrobial and antifungal

Happy Herb Day!