The sun came back this last week, and I was grateful. I love the time of year when there is laundry hanging on the line, open windows to let in the fresh air, and sun tea. We love drinking our sun tea around here.

Growing up, I always saw sun tea made with tea bags. You could watch the color seeping out from the tea bags into the water. I liked the way it smelled. I don’t remember drinking it as a kid, but the adults enjoyed the cold, caffeinated tea on hot days.

My husband Jeff was the one who introduced me to a new way of making sun tea. One summer he started collecting fresh herbs and putting them in a jar of water.

I know lots of people make sun tea with herbs. Usually dried herbs are used though. Dried herbs give the sun tea more flavor. We’ve made sun tea with dried herbs plenty of times, but our favorite way is to use mostly fresh herbs.

Fresh herbs don’t impart as much flavor to the sun tea. It’s more subtle, and gentle. It’s delicious, and we love it, and it’s definitely something to try!

Around here, we make sun tea all summer long!

To make it, we start with a gallon jar filled with water. (If the water you’re using has a strong taste, filtered water can help the essence of fresh herbs come through best.)

Then we gather fresh herbs, and sometimes flowers, around the garden. If you have children in your life, this is something many children enjoy helping with.

Be sure to only choose plants you are familiar with, and know are safe to consume.

It’s fun to experiment and try different combinations to see what your family enjoys.

Here are some of our family’s favorite additions from the garden to add to our sun tea:

-Mint

-Tulsi Basil

-Chamomile

-Lemonbalm

-Catnip

-Lemon Verbena

-Lavender

-Rose Petals

-Bergamot Mint

One of the dried herbs I do add sometimes to our sun tea is hibiscus. I love the tart flavor of hibiscus, and the color it gives.

Once you’ve added all your ingredients, place your jar in a sunny location.

We like to make our sun tea in the morning, let it sit in the sun all day and overnight, and then bring it inside the next morning. (When we leave it outside overnight, I like to think we are making Sun and Moon tea.)

The next step it to use a strainer to strain out the herbs. We pour our sun tea into quart mason jars, and then put those in the fridge to get cold.

I often drink the sun tea right away at room temperature, but it’s also nice to get it cold in the fridge and then have a cool drink to refresh you in the middle of a hot day.

I took this picture of a finished glass of a batch of sun tea with hibiscus (after the herbs had been strained out), next to some of the deep red lettuce in the garden to show how beautiful the color is.

Oh, and something fun? The two pictures above both have chamomile flowers added. Whether the petals are out depends on when you harvest them.

You can see the ones that were gathered earlier, before the flowers had opened for the day, and the ones that were gathered later, when the petals opened up in the sunshine. I love that.

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The other great thing about making sun tea with fresh garden herbs, besides it being a delicious and refreshing way to stay hydrated in the summertime, is that many of the herbs have health benefits to share with us. Drinking it can be a gift to our bodies in many ways.

For more inspiration on making delicious drinks straight from the garden, be sure to check out this post on making Rose Petal Water.

I hope that everything I’ve shared today will inspire your sun tea making! We’d love to hear what your favorite sun tea additions are- leave a comment and let us know!

Cheers to many glasses of delicious sun tea!