Cooking fireweed is a three and a half days. Collected separately from the leaves, flowers separately. Next, iterate, rinse and lay on a blanket layer of approximately 5 cm per day, and periodically turning it. The process of curing (to the leaves become soft).

As soon as the leaves have wilted a little-we begin to turn the "sausages" by hand and put them in a saucepan in two or three layers. In this photo you can see how "wilted" leaves.

That's about a handful I take to twisting. Twist, rumple-twisting movements of the leaves to "slurp" sound. So the leaves let the juice and we are on the path to fermentation.

Here is the result. Put "sausage" in a pan.

Here are the "sausages" in the pan. Tea starts to smell fruity smell. To turn the "sausage" is better in the evening to the morning tea went through the process of fermentation.

Cover them with a wet cloth, close the lid and leave for about 8-12 hours to ferment. My process took 8 hours. Tea begins to play with colors, appear notes of honey. Does not need to "restart" the time, otherwise the tea will ferment and sour. During fermentation, periodically look in the pot and smell the tea. Closer to the final scent will be a rich honey.

Once fermentation has passed, take out the "sausages" and cut them on a clean Board into pieces of a width of approximately 1 cm Gutting our pieces of paper in trays and put in a well-ventilated area in the attic. Drying in the attic took exactly two days. And if you're in the apartment, it can be dried in an oven, but with a vent at a temperature of 50-70 degrees with the door ajar. Drying in the oven takes about an hour and a half. As soon as the leaves began to break-tea's ready! But the leaves should not crumble into dust! If you dry up the tea, we will spoil the taste. All this time the flowers Ivan-tea we just dried on the paper tray in the attic. Approximately two or three days. Also if the house is hot, you can dry and at room temperature. If this is not possible, it can be dried as in an oven with slightly opened door and ventilation at temperatures of 30 degrees within a half hour. Here is our tea to drying.

And so-after...

And it is in the Bank. The outcome with 2 kg make 1 liter cans of dried tea. By the way the strength of the flavour and aroma of the dried tea is gaining after a month of preparation under the lid tightly closed. A month later, the flavor becomes more rich, playing with different colors!

Here's our tea)))it is a Pity that the Internet cannot convey the scent!..

And it in brewed form))) Way better to brew in a thermos! It is a pity that the Internet cannot convey the taste!.. Hope the recipe you like! Collect, drink our age-old Russian tea! After all, the taste is not inferior to imported, but the benefit of it are not equal!