My oh my...was it ever so easy to make tea with fruit from the backyard! Drying these tea leaves & fruit peelings, & fruit pieces, took about 2 hours, and then a few minutes to steep, and I was drinking my own home made delicious tea! :)
Using a dehydrator, lay all your 'cuttings' and 'shavings' on a rack, and depending on the thickness, it will take about 2 hours. Longer for whole fruit, like the raspberries, about 4-5 hours.
If you don't have a dehydrator, use your toaster oven, or your oven, at the lowest setting your appliance has, and watch & check pieces until crunchy.
Camellia bushes, also known as the tea plant, make the 'leaves' for the tea. If you don't use leaves, it's considered more of an infusion of flavors, not really a brewed tea, with leaves. Either way, it's delicious.
For the apple, pomegranate, orange & lemon peelings/shavings, I also scraped the inside to be sure to get all the white 'piffy' insides off to assure there is no bitterness after drying.
For whole apple shavings, once the apple is peeled, I used a potato peeler to get thin strips of apple, and then laid them on the rack to dry. Those only take about 2 hours as well.
The camellia leaves are the newest, tenderest leaves on the bush, cut and dried on a rack for about 2 hours.
I will be trying the steam or boiling method next on the camellia leaves and will post that once I see how they turn out. This is supposed to give more of a green tea, as drying the leaves outright gives more of a darker tea, considered black tea.
I crushed the dried fruit & leaves in a molcajete, but I think crushing them in your hand is better, just use your fingers as you crumble the tea in your infuser.
Use about a teaspoon of crushed bits for each cup of tea. (Crush the ingredients when you're ready to brew for maximum freshness! :) )
For the whole fruit, like the raspberries & apples, I wouldn't crush it at all, just break off how much 'flavor' you'd like in your tea. :)
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