Storing mint: dried
Harvest and Store
May 20, 2009
The previous post about storing mint is turned soon into one of the most popular, so I decided to post about another way to store mint and other herbs: dried.
The picture in this post are about five herbs: white mint, balm, horsemint, applemint, calamint. I store them together to prepare my Mint & herbs tea, one of my family's favourite.
Anyway, you can apply these tips to store mint or other herbs together or separately.
Let's start with the harvest: you shoud harvest mint several times each summer, pruning it a bit every time, before top leaves become hard. Tender and younger leaves will receive more sunlight and will grow better and faster.
After the harvest you can discard all stems and older or ruined leaves.
Wash the leaves and dry them well with a kitchen towel.
You can use an an electric food dehydrator to dry herbs faster. I prefer to use it only for fruit or fleshy chili peppers, and dry herbs naturally.
Put the leaves on a large plate, and put them in a ventilated, not humid, dark place: sunlight can cause leaves to lose colour and flavor.
After a week leaves will crumble between your fingers. Store in a jar or container, away from light and heat sources.
It's possible to grind dryed herbs before storing them: they will be ready to be used, but they will lose flavor.
Mint Recipes
Read also:
Storing marjoram
Storing chamomile
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