I just got hit with a cold which reminds me that I need to add my awesome recipe for elderberry tea here. I have found that when I drink Elderberry tea during my cold, the symptoms decrease in severity and length of time. The downside for me to drinking elderberry tea is digestive issues: passing gas and constipation, sometimes bloating. So I always caution people to drink enough to help shorten the length and severity of the cold, but not so much as to cause intestinal discomfort. It’s a fine line. Capsules filled with the powder made from dried elderberries also help, but I think the tea helps the most.
This is how I make it:
In a small saucepan, place 1 cup of dried elderberries and 4 (or more) cups of water. Bring it to a boil, then let it simmer for a few hours.
There is an unpleasant odour during the cooking time, one of my daughters describes it as “Dirty armpit mixed with decaying dead bodies.” Try to endure that. Honestly, some days the smell of it simmering is enough to make me decide on using the capsules instead of the tea, so it’s always nice to make a bit more than you need and preserve some for later. (More on that later.)
After it has cooked a while, the liquid is thick & dark, and the berries are bloated & soft, I turn off the heat and allow the medicine to sit in the pan and cool down a little bit.
About a 15-30 minutes later, I pull out a clean wide mouth 32 oz canning jar and a stainless steel strainer, and pour the cooked liquid slowly and carefully through the strainer. When the strainer becomes clogged with plump elderberries, I get a round soup spoon and press the bottom of the spoon down against the pile of berries to squish out the juice from them. Once they are pressed, I dump them in the compost (or the trash, no judgement) and continue straining the liquid into the jar.
After all the liquid has been poured into the jar, and all the berries have been squeezed so their juice is in the jar too, I wash the pan and the strainer and the spoon. Though some of the liquid will have evaporated, just double check to make sure that the jar is only about 3/4 full. Put any extra liquid in to a mug to enjoy as soon as everything else is done.
The elderberry juice should be still hot enough to melt honey at this point. Use the amount of honey you prefer, but I like to to add A LOT of honey to the mix, a good cup. I buy my honey from a friend of mine who keeps bees and ensures that the honey is high quality. Put a lid on the jar and give it a shake until the honey melts and dissolves into the liquid. In the mug, add a big dallop of honey as well, stirring it until the honey is dissolved.
Once the honey is dissolved, I add enough unsweetened lemon concentrate (I like Realemon) to fill the jar to the top and to fill the mug to the top. Put a lid on the jar and shake, and stir the liquid in the mug.
At this point, I take a break and drink my elderberry tea.
After I’ve finished drinking my elderberry tea, I return to the mason jar to preserve what is left for future use. This is what I do about that:
Some of it just goes into the fridge for tomorrow, but I don’t like to keep potent things like that in the fridge for too long. I believe they lose some potency or might even go bad.
The liquid is now fully cool. I pull out an ice cube tray and carefully pour the liquid into as many ice cube trays as I need to use up all the remaining liquid. (I keep a stack of ice cube trays clean and ready in my cabinet for freezing leftover produce and whathaveyou that I have run through the blender for future use in instant smoothie drinks. Just add water!)
Freeze the elderberry tea into cubes, the next day pop those cubes out of the ice cube trays and store them in something else in the freezer. I use ziplock bags. Wash the ice cube trays and put them away for next time they are needed. When you want to drink more elderberry tea, just pop a few frozen cubes into a shaker cup, add hot tap water and give it a good shake.
A convenient list of what was used:
- 1 cup Dried Elderberries
- 4+ cups Water
- Pan
- Wide mouth 32 oz Mason jar
- Strainer – the size that would fit over a coffee mug
- A round bowl soup spoon for pressing down the berries
- A non-leaking lid for the Mason jar
- Quality local honey
- Realemon juice
- A mug
- A stir spoon
- Ice cube trays
- A zip lock bag