With Valentines fast approaching, its time to show a little love with the herbs. Whether you’re brewing for two, or warming your own heart, you can create your own blend of herbs to get the mood you want.

Herbs to set the mood

A herbal tea blend will typically include three or more herbs, selected to balance each other, much like the notes in a lovely perfume.

Think in terms of creating a top, middle and base to your blend.

Top notes

The top notes will be the first thing you notice when the water hits the herbs. Aroma is released with a ‘pow’ as tiny scent molecules disperse in the air.

Your ‘top’ herb provides a lightness, it will likely be the first flavour that registers when you sip the tea. Think of this therefore as a scene-setter, the equivalent of lighting a romantic candle.

For these top notes we often go towards the citrus family. In your Love Tea you might include dried citrus peel – either lemon or orange – or go to the lemony herbs such as gentle lemon balm, honey-sweet limeflower, or seductive lemon verbena.

Middle notes

The main part of your Love Tea is there to hold everything together. It’s the key substance of your blend, in the starring role. This should be a flavour you, or your loved one, adore.

It’s the real character of your tea, so choose something that matches your character. Are you romantic wild rose? dreamy field chamomile? voluptuous jasmine? or spicy tumeric?

Base notes

Finally, you want the moment to last, so include some flavours that will linger, wrapping themselves around your tongue before settling with mellow contentment.

If your Love Tea was a bouquet of flowers, these notes would be the beautiful foliage that makes the rest ‘pop’.

There are plenty of deeper flavours to choose from – try holding it all together with robust hemp, add spark with fresh dandelion or layer on the floral sumptuousness with nurturing red clover.

Scent to make you smile

When you add hot water to herbs, even the driest, most unprepossessing samples seem to come to life. Simply breathing them in can give you a lift.

While most the chemistry going on is extracting the plant’s water soluble compounds, the heat will also spark the release of a few oil soluble compounds, particularly those related to the aroma.

So drink in the scent, hug the warmth of your cup, and let the herbs entice and bewitch.