This was my greatest yet, newly found pleasure.
Had never experienced such a gentle tasting yet full flavored , aromatic tea before in my life. Everybody need to experience this... ;)
Since we all GROW them , why not EAT them and even DRINK them ;)
 

This setup and picture is done by me.
Please feel free to create your own display of the Tea experience and join this thread.
Would be awesome if everyone added their input of different variety Fig Leaf Tea they experienced. (with pictorial...)
We can start a catalog of Fig Leaf Tea Flavors..

here are some benefits of fig leaves when consumed...
http://www.natures-health-foods.com/fig-leaves.html

Aaron, please describe your method (age of leaves, fresh or dried, etc)...that and what are those dried fruits on the right?

Aaron are you boiling the dates with the fig leaves? Or do you mean that the dates taste better when drinking fig tea?

Wow, beautiful color of the tea.

I have wanted to try fig leaf tea, I will be interested in hearing about your process as well. 

What variety of fig leaves did you use Aaron?

The variety might be important.  Don't want any tea that tastes like cat pee~

Suzi

Exactly Suzi !

I slept through the heavy rains of the night...wow. And I do't dare going out to check my newly planted cuttings.

-Greg, to make the tea, you need to wash and dry some Fig leaves. I dry them in pantry, in dark. This helps to keep the rich dark green color, otherwise they might turn brownish grey. After they are dry, I shredded them with scissors. When they are dry they are still a bit rubbery, they don't crumble like dry mint for example, so I shredded them with scissors to store in a air tight jar. Those dried fruit are Dates Greg.

-Tony, I ate a Date (LOL...sounds add huh) to satisfy my sweet tooth and it was a perfect compliment to the gentle tee.

-Mike, so, after drying the leaves, you just get some into the little tea pot and brew it just like you would brew green tea, use a very high water temperature.

-Pattee, this particular batch of leaves were from the Vista, they were very fresh new opened leaves from the branch I acquired for rooting, it even had few figs on it.
 
I am using this shot for cataloging the variety in my collection of Unknowns.

-Suzi, It would be helpful to know which varieties have a heavy pungent smell so we can avoid using those for tea and same time, would be good to know which varieties have very aromatic characteristics, so we can use more of those as a potpourri of tea.

Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised at the flavor and aroma of the tea :)

VDB with it's wonderful tasty figs has leaves that smell like cat pee.  I googled fig tea and discovered that some use fresh leaves for the tea.  Evidently the latex is good for diabetics.  There are undernotes of coconut in the tea from what I read.

Aaron, it's nice to have a rainy day!  I thought you might be sleeping in!

I guess we should let our noses be our guides prior to picking leaves for tea.  Many people suggest picking leaves to allow the figs to ripen faster with more sun, so there is that benefit also.

Suzi

@Suzi, I did sleep in, despite my 2 year olds active, noisy presence...

-I read in several sites that you dry them first, also for storing purposes...

-and  shredding, it allows the nutrients to bleed out easily during the brewing process.

-I wonder if, when dried, weather or not this cat pee smell goes away. Can you try and let us know? I don't have a growing VdB yet, I am rooting the cuttings you sent to me.

Hey!  No way am I going to try VDB leaves!!  Once the rain stops and the leaves dry, I'll pick some Verte leaves.  First I'll do the nose test.  I could also try adriatic.  Both those trees have plenty of leaves.  So does VDB, but I'm not going there. 

Suzi

that bad huh? 

Great idea!

I've done the fresh green leaves and it was very refreshing and tasty. As you said DD, a hint of coconut.
"gene"

[QUOTE=genecolin]I've done the fresh green leaves and it was very refreshing and tasty. As you said DD, a hint of coconut.
"gene"[/QUOTE] Gene, how did you prepare the leaves? did you just boil them or shred them before you infuse?  

you know what they say... "one woman's cat pee smelling fig leaf is another woman's coco chanel".

ok Suzi, I think we found a buyer for your cat-pee fig leaves.

Aaron I too love fig leaf tea. I use leaves from my black unknown. No smell to the leaves. I dry mine on top of the refrigerator. It dries them out without turning them brown. I then crumble them up into a jar or plastic bag for storage. I find it has a nutty flavor. I wonder if different kinds of fig leafs have different flavors.

@swizzle, I'm sure they have different aromas and flavors... I was asking people to try and describe so we can start a catalog of Fig Leaf Tea Flavors... Since we all GROW them , why not EAT them and even DRINK them ;)

Aaron, I just chopped them coarsely on my cutting board and then boiled them for 5 minutes. Very good I thought, and now that you've got me thinking about it again and my trees have leaves, I think it's time to do it again.
"gene"

Aaron mentioned that the leaves used were fresh, young leaves.  In my experience those leaves are not yet cat pee scented and perhaps will work well from most figs.  I've experimented a little with fresh young leaves for use as a cooking green because that's when they are the most tender and have not built up much in the way of defense compounds in the leaf cells' vacuoles....at least that was my theory based on watching animals eat leaves on nature shows.  Edible, but not a real part of my diet yet...still playing.

Does anyone know if they are caffeine-free?

And based on general principles, my understanding was that fig ripening and flavor/sweetness depends on the 'manufacture' of carbs via photosynthesis. So more leaves = more sugar in the figs. Doesn't harvesting young leaves compromise fig sweetness?

But yeah, I've also read that this tea has huge health benefits. Must try it - just not sure if I should wait until after main fig-ripening season before picking off those leaves. Can they really be that unpalatable? 

I've never noticed a cat pee smell... but then my cat is a female and doesn't spray to mark territory. You might try leaves from higher up, out of range for cats.

I've noticed cat pee smell on some bananas. I don't think cats dump on them, or fig leaves for that matter. Foxes are a different story tho.

here is an old korean recipe. 

a segment of fresh ginger
a stick of cinnamon
an orange peel
few chinese dates
pinch of dried fig leaf since it's on fig forum.. but back in korea, specially up in seoul, fig wasn't around. down by busan (pusan) there were some.. or so i'm told by my wife. 

bring them to simmer and keep on simmering. serve whenever you want to drink it. used to run that on top of kerosene burner/stove all winter long in korea.

@gene, you are right, this is a good time to harvest tender, fresh leaves. I think the reason they encourage to shred them thin is to get the most nutrients out of them without boiling too long, just pour boiling water on them and let them sit for about 5 min... (Infusion). As we boil things they tend to lose some of their nutritional values.

@Greg, I have a potted fig, not sure what variety it is, i forgot, and the leaves do smell bad...I mean Skunk bad... this is a 3-4 foot tall branch that has about 6-8 leaves on it and regardless which one , they all smell awful (maybe it is VdB, as Suzi mentioned above, but, isn't VdB a Vista?)

@Costas, Caffein issue is not mentioned in any research I found on the net, but it would be very interesting to find out. What concerns to smelly leaves, I would just leave them alone, there are so many more varieties to take leaves from. Also, harvesting leaves shouldn't mean to strip the tree or the branch off of it's leaves entirely. Although , I have seen some YouTubes about Texan Everbearing being completely stripped off it's leaves in order to get plenty of sun to ripen the fruits at the end of the harvest season.

@Tom, although this smell resembles cat pee, it has NOTHING to do with cats or Skunks. LOL

@Pete, that recipe sounds very soothing, great for cold days... maybe even consumed chilled in hot seasons...I love Jujube. Ginger ir great for joint pains and arthritis, it is anti inflammatory. Cinnamon is good for diabetics and regulates body's glycemic index.

http://www.natures-health-foods.com/fig-leaves.html

Vista is a large tree and synonymous to Black Mission.  VDB is a smaller tree.  They are not the same.

Suzi

ok good, I was wandering why my leaves didn't smell like Cat Pee...LOL

Thanks for the tasty recipe Aaron and nice photos!
I just bought some Chinese dates and fig leaf tea sounds like a nice combination.
Any reason why you can't dry a bunch of fresh leaves and store them in jars to enjoy over the cold winter?

thanks Joe, I'm glad you like this thread, I was so impressed by the taste of the leaf tea I had to let everyone know, LOL

The Tea leaves are shredded after drying and stored in air tight container... (according most sites I read...)so, yes, There is NO reason why you can't dry them for later consumption.

Chinese dates are actually Jujube they are not real dates, not the dates that grown in Middle east , Mediterranean  or California. I love Jujube but the date is a different animal ;)

I like fig leaf tea. However, I have never used fresh leaves.

I like to collect the leaves from my trees in the fall after the tree has drawn all the green from them and they fall off on their own or at the slightest touch. I put them in a wicker basket to finish drying and strore them there as well. I crush them and put them in a infuser. The tea is lovely golden, I like to add a bit of honey. The taste and aroma are slightly of dried fig and coconut.

I use all types of different varieties, but I smell the leaves before I decide to keep them. If they smell good (like dried figs and coconut, or anything else pleasant) I keep them, if they smell like grass clippings they go to the garbage. By the way, VdB leaves lose the cat pee smell when the tree withdraws everything from the leaf and it is yellow and falls off. The flip side to this though, if the leaves frost or fall off before all the green is gone..even a hint of green, I think the tea is inferior and tastes too vegetal like you brewed your tea from grass clippings.

Aaron, when I first read the title to this post, I thought you were saying you had a date with a cup of fig tea. Romancing the tea.  :)

@Calvin, LOL

Re:Aaron, when I first read the title to this post, I thought you were saying you had a date with a cup of fig tea. Romancing the tea.  :) 
I meant it to sound that way, I thought it would make people smirk.

When I dried the Green leaves I really liked the dry fruity smell combined with typical fig smells... I have never had dry (brown, or Fall) leaves to compare the teas... would be interesting little experiment.

Last night, my 4 year old daughter was struggling with breathing do to a light cold she got from her school. She , out of nowhere decided to try my Fig Leaf tea that I had brewed and was enjoying. She finished the entire mug. She slept like a baby and today her nose is dry... Could it be the tea? :)

Abebereria leaf tea tastes like...asperagus. It may be the way I prepared it, leaves were picked two days ago and left to dry on the counter. They were semi-dry when I chopped them into little tiny pieces. I boiled the water, turned off the fire and threw the leaves in to steep a couple min. Not too happy with the flavor.

On to the next variety...

The Mrs is the tea drinker here i should trick her 1 day just to see her face - then run.

Today I tried a new tea. I was checking out some trees and notice how nice the mulberry leaves were. Since figs and mulberries are related I thought why not make a tea. Before I brewed it, I checked the internet for mulberry tea and found loads of info. So I brewed it with green leaves and it made a lovely tea but it tasted too green. Perhaps the dried leaves will be better. I will pick some tomorrow and dry them, then try again.
"gene"

don't run Martin, if you do she'll never reach you for a kiss .

@Gene, nice take on different relative of figs...I wander of the beneficial factors of it... any idea?

Aaron  -  lol could tell some stories !

Sue, I'll have to try making tea with mine. It's still a small plant but I think I can safely harvest a few leaves. Then as you said, off to the next variety just to see if I can detect any differences.
"gene"

I grew up with fig leaf tea.  

there were always reports of some idiots using it on the skin to get a 'beautiful sun tan' _ REALLY bad idea, serious 3rd degree burns can occur.

Please drink it, and don't use it for suntanning.

i'm a tea drinker. coffee can be to acidic for me sometimes. i stick to english black tea. occasional chinese teas are good such as oolong, but i drink at work and loose teas are too much bother. a bag of pg tips is what i need in the morning.

Pete, I found this very thin nicely made clay chinese tea mug, with a cover... it has it's own lose leaf compartment inside to keep the leaves separate,so, when drinking the tea the leaves won't get in your mouth. Love it, And from what I hear, more tea stains on the clay more valuable it becomes? LOL same with Tea Pots.

 

Aaron, do a google search for the medicinal properties of mulberry tea. It's pretty potent.
"gene"

Gene, I have a big bottle of mulberry tea that I made myself. It is said to lower the blood cholesterol. It tastes like green tea. I am a tea drinker and have all sorts of tea at home. Haven't tried fig tea yet since my plants are still very small. Norhayati

Drink the tea, I'll stick to eat figs !
Seriously, if you take now the leaves off, the tree can't grow properly.
Here, I could give it a try in July when the trees have 5+ leaves per stem, or in the fall, but for now ... I just have buds :) and tiny leaves .

Aroon4usa, which ones makes the better tea, males (caprifig) or females :) ?

I just did that Gene, thanks... 

we don't have to harvest the leaves right away... it can be done even when the figs are harvested, the trees always put fresh leaves...

jdfrance, you need to try the tea, you'll be surprised. I really don't know much about the leaf differences yet,,, I am experimenting... as to weather Capri or female fig leaves.... I can try the capri leaves later and post it... but when I rub the capri leaves sometime in past I din't get much aroma  while sniffing the leaf, yet it was just one variety of Capri... i'll try others

Well I tried the Abebereria leaf tea and I somewhat agree with Sue that it tastes like asperagus, well maybe a hint of asperagus. It it definitely not as good as the tea made with my Cajun Gold which had a coconut flavor. I will do a cup this afternoon or tomorrow and see if I get the same taste I remembered from last year.
"gene"

The Green Ischia leaves have a very delicious taste and amazing aroma, has anyone else tried this?

drying the leaves in warm, shade helps them stay nice  green while they are drying.

 


I wish you could smell the aroma...it's amazing ...I smell Vanilla, Coconut, Chamomile and Mint.

 

Looks great Aaron but is there an active ingredient contained in fig leaves that makes it a beneficial drink?
My coffee is very jealous of me.

@Joe, here some fore reads...

http://natures-health-foods.com/fig-leaves.html

Interesting read thanks!

wellcome, indeed its informative...

Try taking your dried figs leaves and toasting them in a dry frying pan.
Low to medium heat, heavy pan if possible, heat the pan first, no oil, dry,
stir the dried leaves for a few minutes, a nutty smell will start to rise from the pan,
give it a few more minutes, then remove and cool.  Make your tea.

If you like rice,
take  two fresh fig leaves and float in your rice cooker. Cook rice.
Remove leaves once cooking is finished.
Might become your new favorite rice.

Can also use fig leaves to make cheese (rennet) or  ferment (pickle) vegetables.

Hi Aaron,

Do you ever use the fresh leaves?  If I have to trim some leaves off I like to make fig leaf tree.  The storage benefit of dried leaves makes sense.  Does it taste the same?

I have noticed that different varieties have different aromas and flavors as tea.  Have you noticed that too?

Joe, i never tryied the fresh leaves, I should.
You are right about each variety having a different aroma.
Dry ones would have less grassy underlying taste and more like green tea with touch of Vanila, Coconut, chamomile or Mint.
Thats my take on it so far.
After drying, I crash them like dry mint, removing all the thick veins and stalks and keep it in an airtight jar.

there it is, the final product. ;)

 

Yummm... What a nice topic . Thank you Aaron for sharing. Your tea set up looks so cozy and warm...We make tea from fresh leaves and it taste good too.  My youngest daughter runs outsides when we want to make that special "garden" tea and she knows what to pick already to make that nice combination : couple mulberry leaves, couple fig leaves, couple guava leaves and a few nice strands of lemon grass.  This combination can be varied depending on what flavor you enjoy more. Each of this herb has great health benefits. I love lemon grass flavor a lot :0 ) Everyone who tries this special tea in our house really enjoys it and keeps asking for seconds :)  Jujubes when dried make delicious healthy drink when simmered on low for a few minutes, they are great for heart and liver problems or just nutritious hot or cold drink.   Keep experiementing and enjoy your tea and stay healthy !

I am glad Aaron you started this topic. I did not know you can make tea out of fig leaves. I'll give it a try.

welcome Katerina, I have heard different combinations to Fig leaves....Pete had mentioned the Jujube and Lemon grass as well, sounds lovely. I want to try them all.

Pat, this is all new to me too, that's why I am promoting it, I was pleasantly surprised as I tried for the first time.

  sorry  IDK why this came out so BIG I cant shrink the pictures,    I'm a space hog  LOL

Well if the name isn't hint enough, I am a lover of tea. All the recipes and drying methods have me so looking forward to next fall for the leaves of my new figs AND mulberries. Now I have one more reason to obsess over my plethora of plants. <3

[QUOTE=bullet08]here is an old korean recipe. 

a segment of fresh ginger
a stick of cinnamon
an orange peel
few chinese dates
pinch of dried fig leaf since it's on fig forum.. but back in korea, specially up in seoul, fig wasn't around. down by busan (pusan) there were some.. or so i'm told by my wife. 

bring them to simmer and keep on simmering. serve whenever you want to drink it. used to run that on top of kerosene burner/stove all winter long in korea.[/QUOTE]

Oooh, this sounds good!

I have a pitcher of iced fig leaf tea in the fridge most of the time.
After drying the leaves I put them thru a small electric grinder (for coffee beams or herbs), and store the ground leaves in plastic bags in the freezer.
I make my iced tea with a large tea bag filled with the ground fig leaves and throw in some home grown spearmint leaves (fresh in summer, dried in winter).  Sometimes I will add a single green tea bag to the brew for variety, and my wife recently got some black tea with pomegranate - a tea bag of that adds a different flavor also for variety. 

Hopefully I have enough dried fig leaves to make it thru the winter this year, most of my trees were small and I did not want to set them back too much by taking a lot of their leaves early in the summer.  We had so much rain in Sept that most got rust and I did not want to use those leaves for tea.

[QUOTE=Aaron4USA]there it is, the final product. ;)

 [/QUOTE]

Ooooh, nice. So u grind the leaves, Aaton?