Pregnancy Tea

I like to drink tea but once I got pregnant, I stopped. Although I really only drank decaffeinated and herbal teas, it was still confusing which ones were okay and which weren't and I didn't want to take any chances.

But I had heard good things about Red Raspberry Leaf tea and was excited about trying it out. There is some conflicting information about taking it during the first trimester so I played it safe and waited until late in my second when I bought some Traditional Medicines Pregnancy tea. It's mostly red raspberry leaf mixed with nettle, mint and a few other herbs. It took a few tries before I liked the taste but I do enjoy it now. It is expensive though and to reap the best benefits you are supposed to starting increasing your intake in the third trimester to 3 cups a day. I needed to come up with an alternative.

So I made my own! Most of the basic recipes I've seen include the same four herbs so this is what I settled on:
8 parts Red Raspberry - Tones and nourishes the uterus
3 parts Alfalfa - High in vitamins and minerals including iron and calcium.
3-4 parts Peppermint - Aids in digestion, covers up flavor of Alfalfa and Nettle :-)
2 parts Nettle (I left out for now, see *) - Increases urine production, helps with bloating, UTI prevention

I made a big batch of the mix using a 1/2 cup as my "part." Once you mix it up, you can prepare it several ways. If you have a tea strainer or infuser ball you could make a cup at a time. I have a little pot with a strainer insert that makes about two cups of tea. Both would be good options for the second trimester but I knew if I had to make more than one batch of tea a day, it just wouldn't happen plus it was starting to get warmer around here so I came up with plan B - Sun Tea!

Isn't that a great idea? I though so but no, apparently sun tea is forbidden now because the water gets warm enough to brew the tea but not warm enough to kill bacteria so you are basically risking your life if you drink it. Who knew? Not me, at least not until I had already bought a sun tea jar.

My final solution? Instead of letting it steep outside, I heat several quarts of water on the stove, add in about a cup of the loose tea mix and let it steep for 30 minutes. (If it is too strong for you, just dilute it later on.) At this point, you could add in sweetener and to be honest, it would probably taste better made southern style with several cups of sugar but since I am drinking so much, I leave it unsweetened :-( It's still tasty sugarless just not as tasty.

Then I strain it as I pour it into my non-Sun Tea jar and keep it in the fridge. The strainer doesn't take all the little particles of tea out but it gets most of them and the remaining ones float. Since I take the tea from the bottom of the jar, I don't ever get floaters in my glass.

The big batch lasts all week and since it is kept cool and ready in my fridge, it's easy to get several large glasses down a day. And it isn't real tea but just an herbal drink, I can count them as hydrating liquids too!

*I get my coconut oil and castor oil from Mountain Rose Herbs and would have ordered my herbs from them too but they were out of Red Raspberry Leaf at the time so I ended up ordering from Bulk Herb Store. Unfortunately, B.H.S. was out of nettle so I left that out for now and will add it next time I place an order with M.R.H. I would recommend either company but the shipping is kind of expensive to try to get everything you need from one or the other if you can :-) You can also order it pre-mixed from the B.H.S. but I plan to use all three of the herbs I bought to make a batch of Mama's Milk Tea later on.