Borage flowers are great attraction in my garden from June till late autumn. The clusters of piercing blue star-shaped flowers are borage’s greatest asset and its cucumber-flavored grey-green leaves are covered with bristly hair. Borage should be planted in groups as it grows rather high approximately one meter tall and needs something to hold onto. It needs very little support looking after but prefers a moisture-retaining soil and sun. It self-seeds very nicely, so once you have couple of borage plants you will have no need to buy more seeds. I highly recommend you buy your seeds from local gardeners as they are most reliable and honest. I had rather bad experiance buying online and end up growing Cardamine flexuosa instead which is rather an invasive plant.

Herbal teas, or tisanes, are great substitutes for tea/coffee with high caffeine content. Although many herbs can be used to make teas, not all of them are suited to modern tastes. Borago Officinalis is the queen of the drinking herbs. The cucumber flavored leaves and starry blue flowers of borage are ideal auditions to summer drinks. This beautiful herb comforts the heart, dispels grief and sadness, aids the heavy-hearted, broken hearted or down-hearted and uplifts the spirit. This drink truly brings a hygge spice of life.

Borage Tea Therapy Recipe

This beautiful herb comforts the heart, dispels melancholy and stimulates the release of adrenaline. To relieve the mind during times of stress, depression and insomnia, take a cup of borage tea.

By Zosia Culinary Adventures | Date: April 15

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Yield: 2 cups of tea

Ingredients:

• 2 handfuls of fresh borage (delicate leaves and flowers) plus extra flower for garnish or 2 teaspoons of dried borage

• 500 ml just boiled water

• honey preferable lavender flavour, to taste

• fresh lemon juice, to taste

Instructions:

1. Warm up a ceramic teapot with hot water. Golden rule is never to use metal containers. Let it sit for 2-5 minutes. Empty it, put in the fresh or dry borage.

2. To make the tea to perfection, boiling water must be poured on the leaves and the flowers directly when it just boils. Do not use water that has overboiled as scorches the leaves and tends to make the tea bitter.

3. Cover the teapot and let the tea steep for 10-15 minutes before straining.

4. Sweeten with honey and flavour with few drops of fresh lemon juice to add a little zing if you wish. Enjoy it hot or chilled and iced for a refreshing summer drink!

This drink truly brings a hygge spice of life.