Nettle Tea

Making Nettle Tea

If you are having nettle tea from teabags, you don't have to worry at all about the sting. The sting (from histamine and formic acids) has been dried out.

If you are harvesting fresh leaves, then you have to be a little more careful. Don't harvest from areas where pesticides or car diesel fumes might coat the plants. Use gloves. Snip the brighter green tops and place in your collecting bowl or basket. Give them some rough chopping with a pair of clean scissors. Place them in your pot or teapot. Pour boiling water over them. Let it brew for AT LEAST ten minutes. This way the sting is removed. Then, you can strain the herbs and drink the tea. And the cooked nettles are edible and good for you.

The stinging nettle was referred to by Shakespeare in the play Henry IV part 1, where the character Hotspur asks that "out of this nettle, danger, we grasp this flower, safety." The common figure of speech "to grasp the nettle" has its origin in this quotation and means to face up to or take on a known problem.

Stinging nettles have long been of considerable value as fodder for livestock, although when they are growing they won't be eaten by the animals because of their known stinging power. However, if harvested and left to wilt they lose their sting and are then relished by livestock, particularly cattle which respond to a nettle diet by giving more milk, and poultry which respond by laying more eggs. In Sweden and Russia the stinging nettle has even been cultivated as a fodder plant. Horses are known to prosper on nettles and in many countries horse dealers mix nettle seeds with horse feed in order to help their horses develop a sleek and lustrous coat.

Nettle stems are very fibrous and the strong fibre taken from them has often been compared to flax, hemp and linen. It has been used in the past for making string, ropes, sacks and sails, a good quality paper and fabric for use in clothing. In the first world war nettle cloth was used in Germany for making their military uniforms. There is a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen called The Princess and the Eleven Swans, in which the princess weaves some coats out of nettle cloth.

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