Ivan-tea is an undeservedly forgotten plant, which, with proper preparation, can successfully replace all the usual tea. You can collect it in almost any forest, on its edge, in the field, in the meadow. The seeds of the plants are very volatile, so they quickly take root in places where there is no other vegetation yet, for example, on lands after a fire, cuttings. Therefore, from English its name "Fireweed" literally translates as "weed after a fire." Also, people called it by various names: Koporsky tea, mother liquor, and nap, and the scientific name is narrow-leaved fireweed. It has long been used as a miracle drink, so further on the harvesting of willow tea at home.
Ivan-tea - properties
Koporsky tea should be consumed as a drink after the so-called fermentation. We will learn more about this later, but for now about the benefits and harms of fermented willow tea. 
The benefits are obvious due to the presence in the composition of this product a huge amount of vitamins, minerals and trace elements.
The plant contains ascorbic acid six times more lemon, vitamins of groups A, B and PP, there is in it potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, copper, selenium, iron, calcium, zinc, sodium. It is successfully used as a tonic, tonic and therapeutic agent.
Due to the presence of essential oils, the properties of the drink are maintained for three days. Let us dwell on the healing properties and contraindications of fermented willow tea.
Did you know? Ivan tea is considered a high-calorie product, contains about 100 calories per 100 g. Therefore, it is indispensable when traveling, on a long hunt or fishing. - forces recover faster.
Medicinal properties
Due to its beneficial components, since ancient times, Koporsky tea has been used to treat and prevent a number of diseases. 
Further most common use cases:
- Proven anti-inflammatory and enveloping effect in diseases of the stomach and intestines. Tea helps with gastritis, gastric ulcer, duodenal ulcer and other similar ailments, is effective for all sorts of poisoning.
- Beneficial effect on the circulatory system. If you drink a drink from fireweed regularly, there is a so-called alkalization of blood, which is necessary to maintain its normal pH level. It promotes the formation of new blood cells and has the property of stopping bleeding.
- Ivan tea can be used as a substitute for valerian for the prevention and treatment of various neuroses. It has a calming effect, helps with anxiety and depression.
- For a long time, the drink has proven itself as a universal remedy for diseases and disorders of the genitourinary system. It normalizes potency, fights with prostate adenoma and does not allow it to develop into an oncological disease. It has a therapeutic effect in case of kidney disease and cystitis.
- It is used as an anti-inflammatory and antipyretic drug. There is an effect in diseases of the oral cavity, bleeding gums.
- Ivan-tea acts as an imunomodulator, works as a powerful antioxidant and body cleaner, normalizes pressure, relieves headache, and has a universal strengthening effect.
Did you know? In Russia, the first mention of ivan tea as a healing drink dates back to the 12th century. Alexander Nevsky tried it and gave instructions to develop production in Koporye.
Contraindications
Since willow tea itself has a therapeutic effect, it is not necessary to use it in combination with other medicines, especially antipyretic and sedative. It is necessary to apply dosed, not "buckets" and take breaks after a month of use.
Otherwise it will lead to indigestion. Not recommended for children under six years old, it is necessary to drink carefully in case of blood diseases.
Learn also about the medicinal properties of such herbs as Durishnik, Zheleznitsa Crimean, wheatgrass, wood lice, kupena, bitter wormwood, lythrum, salvia, canuper, goldenrod, aconite, catnip, mountaineer, soapworm.
What is fermentation and why do it?
The fermentation process is used to prepare Koporskogo tea at home. Consider what is the process of fermentation of tea from a scientific point of view.
The main point is that the plant produces juice, which reacts with air, which leads to fermentation and oxidation, then it is dried. 
After this treatment, all useful properties are preserved in the boiling plant and the drink acquires a fruity taste. If you just dry the leaves, brewed tea will be tasteless and useless.
Therefore, the question what is fermented tea is the answer - it is a drink with a pleasant fruity taste, which retains all the benefits of the plant.
The process of collecting and harvesting
In order to get a useful drink later, it is important to understand how the wormwood looks. In nature, the plant is human-grown, perennial, with pink and purple flowers.
Collect and harvest leaves of fire. Flowers are dried or fermented as an additive to a tea drink, and the roots are dried and ground to a state of flour. From this flour they bake cakes, add it to dishes.
Koporsky tea is collected during its flowering, that is, throughout the summer. It is necessary to distinguish black-fronted herb from other species of this family. In swampy and damp places you can meet swamp and fine-colored fireweed. 
It is quite simple to distinguish them from willow tea - the others are not more than 20 cm high.
Did you know? Picking a leaf does not harm the plant, if you do it carefully and do not damage the stem. The plant is a wonderful melliferous plant; its median productivity per hectare can reach 600 kg.
Collecting leaves
Leaf collection begins in June and ends in August. It is good to find a corner away from the roads so that the product is environmentally friendly. It is necessary to collect young leaves, ranging from inflorescence and dropping almost down.
The stem is strong enough, so you can just with effort to hold it from top to bottom. Near the inflorescence you need to leave several tiers of leaves - they will help the plant grow well further. It is desirable to collect the sheet in the morning, when the dew has already descended in dry, warm weather.
Opinions about where it is better to do it differ. Someone advises open spaces with lots of sun, and someone points to shaded areas and margin of fields. 
The latter argue that in such places the leaf is more tender and juicy.
Important! Leaves of fireweed should be collected only until the pubescence of the flower. Pooh is difficult to remove from the leaves, they are more rigid and they have significantly less useful properties.
Wilting leaves
Curling is done in order to remove excess moisture from the leaves, which will interfere with fermentation. From this it is obvious that before preparing the sheet does not need to wash. Next, place the leaves on the fabric with a ball no more than a few centimeters in height and leave to vyalitsya about 12 hours.
As the willow-tea has antipyretic properties, the sucker is silvery, barberry, Rhodiola rosea, meadowsweet, blackberry, viburnum, cornel, heather, sloes.Leaves should be stirred. The optimum air temperature for this process is up to 26 ° C with a relative humidity of about 70%. If the temperature is higher, the sheet will wither faster. Sagging sheet often in the house in a dark place, at least in the open air.
In the latter case, there can only be a light breeze and shade — a strong wind and the sun will dry the leaves and not wither. The easiest way to check whether the leaves are withered is to take a few and squeeze them into a fist. 
If they are not ready, they will fall apart; if they are ready, they will remain in a compressed form. Then the moisture content of the sheet will be approximately 60%.
Important! If you dry the leaf during the drying process, do not add water - the raw material is spoiled. We need to collect fresh and repeat all over again.
Fermentation Preparation
The leaves withered and you can begin the process of preparing it for fermentation. It is necessary to destroy the structure of the leaflet and extract the juice from it, which contains the enzymes responsible for the process itself. This will maximize the release of nutrients from the plant.
If the juice is not enough, the fermentation will be bad, and the tea will lose its taste and a lot of useful. There are several ways to ferment willow tea at home, dwell on the most used and proven.
Leaf curl
We take up to 10 leaves of the plant, fold them together and roll between the palms to make a "sausage". 
This is done with effort until the leaves become darker. This means that they have allocated juice.
Leaf crease
Another recipe for making tea at home is crushing. Raw materials are placed in a bowl, better enameled, crushed by the type of kneading dough.
After 15 minutes, the leaves secrete juice and darken, becoming thinner and somewhat twisted. In the process, the leaves must be separated, to avoid lumps.
Twisting in a meat grinder
A common method of cooking Koporskogo tea at home - grinding leaves in a meat grinder.
To do this, take the grid with large holes, in the process of twisting the meat grinder should not cool down for long. 
Fermentation
Fermentation technology is directly related to the methods of cooking sheet mass. The rolled up leaves are folded in layers in a pan and placed on top of the oppression.
All this should be covered with a cloth slightly moistened with water and left in a warm, but not hot place. The best fermentation temperature of willow is up to 26 ° C.
If the temperature is low, the processes stop; if it is high, some of the products that give strength and taste to tea do not dissolve, it will smell and taste the taste of ordinary cheap tea.
By the time this process can take from 3 hours to 3 days. Longer fermentation - tea is stronger. You can extend the fermentation to a maximum of 12 days, but after 3-4 days you need to move the container to a cooler place and make sure that the mass is not moldy. 
There is a way to ferment twisted leaves in a three-liter jar.
You need to tightly fill it with sausages of leaves, cover with a plastic cap or a damp cloth and put to wander in a warm place. Fermentation time no more than 40 hours.
Crumpled leaves can also be fermented using a three-liter jar. Technology hike - the leaves are very tightly packed, covered
and left in a warm place for a day. The aging time depends on the desire for further strength of tea.
Crumpled leaves can still be fermented differently. To do this, take a piece of matter and just slightly moisten it. So the canvas will not take away the moisture of the leaves. From above the foliage is laid out, the canvas is twisted and tied with a rope. 
The bundle should be bruised for approximately 20 minutes and left for a preliminary fermentation of an hour for 3. It is necessary to check the twisting temperature - if it is close to 37 ° C, the preliminary process is completed.
Next, the bundle is placed directly in the tank, where it will be fermented, put pressure and left to heat for fermentation up to 3 days.
The best way to ferment willow tea at home, in the opinion of many, is from minced leaves. It is the least laborious and fastest in time.
The mixture is stirred, put the container (it is better to use enamel or metal-ceramic), cover with slightly dampened with water and placed in heat for up to a day, usually from three to six hours. 
Fermentation of ivan tea at home is completed when the leaf color changes from green to greenish brown, and the smell from grassy to bright fruit-floral.
Drying
The final stage of fermentation of ivan tea at home is the proper drying of the leaf or twisted mass. If twisted "sausages" or crumpled sheets are cut before drying, small-leaved tea will come out.
You can dry and whole sheets - this mixture will be a large-leaf tea. From the mixture after processing in a meat grinder you get granulated. Paper is put on the baking sheet, sheets are laid out on it and leveled off, their layer must be up to a centimeter.
You need to dry in the oven, stirring constantly at a temperature of about 100 ° C for one and a half to two hours. Further, the temperature decreases. 
Do not close the oven. When the color of the leaves becomes the color of the usual tea, and the tea leaves do not crumble when they break open, remove the product from the oven and leave to cool at normal air temperature.
Tea can be dried in the open air, spreading it on paper or cloth, but putting only in the shade. The open sun is bad for the beneficial substances of tea.
There are also ways to dry tea in a griddle and in aerogrill. They are less popular.
Flowers of fireweed need to be dried separately from the leaves, because they dry out much faster.
Important! Do not overdo the tea during drying. The smell of burning paper can be added to its smell, it will lose its taste and useful qualities.If you suddenly have little printed information, on YouTube channel there is enough video of the fireworm in the home.
Tea storage
In order for Ivan tea to be well kept, it is necessary to avoid moisture per se. In places of storage dryness is obligatory. It is stored in closed cans of glass or ceramics.
Also, tea is well kept in waterproof paper and cloth bags. You can use tin or plastic containers.
Brewing
There are no many recipes for cooking Koporskogo tea. He is only one.
For brewing tea, they also use euphorbia, safflower, holly-leaf magonia, white acacia, rosemary, Chinese magnolia vine, princess, Tibetan lofant.Tea pot, ceramic or porcelain, boils over boiling water. 2-3 tablespoons of tea per half-liter of water are poured inside and infused for up to 15 minutes.
Some connoisseurs insist on brewing for at least 40 minutes. Do not wrap up. It is important to brew a drink using filtered or spring water. You can drink it hot and cold. 
Connoisseurs claim that Koporsky tea is far superior to good Ceylon tea in its characteristics. It tones, well quenches thirst. And the useful properties of homemade fermentation of ivanca that manifest themselves in the final product are not counted at all.
Important! If heated, you can not boil - he will lose taste and favor.The process from collecting leaves to brewing takes very little time, it is not time consuming. Regular use of this miracle drink will not only strengthen and protect the body, but will contribute to the prevention and control of various ailments.
