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How to make Honeysuckle Tea. Learn an easy sun tea method to make a delicious and healing tea! A natural antibiotic, liver detoxifier & more!
Honeysuckle Tea Recipe
Ohhh, honeysuckle! One of my very favorite smells is sweet honeysuckle. And lucky for me, I have an abundance of honeysuckle at my home here in Pennsylvania.
I love it so much (and we have so much!) that I named our property Honeysuckle Hollow. When it’s in bloom, I walk outside or open up my windows and glorious honeysuckle is all I smell. It’s heaven to me!
Because we have an abundance of honeysuckle at my home here at Honeysuckle Hollow and because I love foraging and looking for ways to use edible herbs and plants, I’ve been experimenting with different ways to use honeysuckle during the last couple of years.
Out of all my honeysuckle experiments, I have two most loved ways to use honeysuckle. And of course, I’m sharing them with you so you can experience some delicious and healing honeysuckle health benefits, too!
My first favorite way to use honeysuckle is to make a delicious iced Honeysuckle Tea. It’s so good! It’s naturally sweet, it’s so refreshing and I absolutely adore it! Annnnnd…. honeysuckle tea is loaded with some very cool health benefits! If you have access to honeysuckle, you have to try this refreshing, healing Honeysuckle Tea! I think you’ll love it 🙂
(My second favorite way to use honeysuckle is in an upcoming blog post)
Health Benefits of Honeysuckle
When I first researched honeysuckle, I was surprised and delighted to learn about all the health benefits of honeysuckle. I never knew what a powerhouse it is when it comes to fighting many illnesses!
In fact, Traditional Chinese Medicine and herbalists consider honeysuckle one of the first healing herbs to help with infections, inflammation, fevers and detox. It’s even one of the 50 fundamental herbs in Chinese herbology. So cool!
Honeysuckle can help….
- Inflammation – honeysuckle is most well known and used medicinally for treating inflammation in the body.
- Headaches – honeysuckle works wonders for relieving headaches and migraines.
- Nausea, Stomachache and Digestive Disorders – honeysuckle lowers inflammation and soothes the stomach.
- Arthritis – honeysuckle fights inflammation in the body and can help with all types of arthritis.
- Detox Toxins – Chinese Medicine considers honeysuckle one of the best whole body detoxifiers, especially for the blood and liver.
- Boost Immune System – honeysuckle contains powerful antioxidants, it’s rich in Vitamin C and it’s a great source of Quercetin, which is an acid that fights free radicals in the body.
- Cold, Cough and The Flu – not only is honeysuckle an expectorant, but it’s known as a natural antibiotic that protects against a broad spectrum of bacteria and viruses including strep, staph, salmonella, pneumonia, tuberculosis and more.
- Fevers – Chinese Medicine uses honeysuckle to treat fevers.
Honeysuckle Tea
You can experience the inflammation fighting, immune boosting and other healing benefits of honeysuckle by making a delicious iced honeysuckle tea. It’s my very favorite way to experience the many health benefits of honeysuckle.
And honeysuckle tea is so simple and fun to make!
All you have to do is infuse honeysuckle flowers in water. Most recipes will tell you to pour hot or boiling water over the honeysuckle flowers. But I’ve found that method, more often than not, will produce a bitter tasting tea. Because honeysuckle flowers are very delicate, if the water temperature is too hot or if you steep your tea too long in hot water, it will bring out bitter compounds in the flowers. Not so tasty.
The key to a truly delicious and non bitter honeysuckle tea is to do a cold brew method OR letting your tea gently brew a few hours in the sun (a honeysuckle sun tea…my favorite method!).
For directions on how to make honeysuckle tea, see below…
How to Make Honeysuckle Tea
- 1 part honeysuckle flowers
- 2 parts water
- ice for serving
- Gently crush or bruise your honeysuckle flowers. You can do this by hand or gently with a wooden spoon.
- Add honeysuckle flowers to a pitcher or cup.
- Top with water and stir. Cover.
- Put the pitcher in the refrigerator overnight, or at least 6-8 hours up to 15 hours.
- Strain the flowers out and enjoy your honeysuckle tea over ice.
- Add the bruised honeysuckle flowers to pitcher or cup. Add water and stir. Cover.
- Put the pitcher in full sun for 3-4 hours.
- Strain the flowers out and enjoy over ice.
Where to Buy Honeysuckle Tea
You don’t have to miss out on all this honeysuckle goodness if you don’t have access to fresh honeysuckle. You can buy dried honeysuckle so you can experience the delicious taste and all the health benefits, too! Here is the kind I like. Enjoy!
Pin Honeysuckle Tea Recipe HERE:
I love the scent of honeysuckle and as kids we would always suck on the ends of the flowers. I had no idea it had all these health benefits! Always learning something new from you, Kelly!
Oh, and I’m making your Greek fish skillet again tonight. It is a staple now. Don’t even need to look at the recipe. So easy and good!
Where can you buy honeysuckle flowers?
Hi Debi, you can often find dried honeysuckle flowers in Asian markets, but I get mine on Amazon here —-> http://amzn.to/2sAZOgZ
Thought you said you had an abundance of Honeysuckle at your home Honeysuckle Hollow ?
Yes, I do! We moved here 3 years ago and that’s where I previously bought them 🙂
I Love tea, Great idea thanks for sharing it!
I love tea from honeysuckle this tea helps me to fall asleep. My grandmother always prepared it for me before bed.
That’s very cool, Alice!
Hi Kelly! I am from the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania! I just recently started learning about the ‘weeds’ and wild flowers around my house (15 feet off my back porch is about 150 acres of woods!) And we have a HUGE amount of Japanese honeysuckle! I have read it’s an invasive species. It has recently overtaken a crab apple tree the deer love to frequent about 5 feet into the woods and has just about killed the crab apple tree 🙁 Do you know if the Japanese honeysuckle can also be used as the tea?
I have suffered since I was about 7 years old (I am 39 now) with chronic excruciating migraines and I have daily headaches also since that age 🙁 I’ve been on way too MANY medications to count and I am trying to take a more natural approach to my chronic migraines (among 12 other medical conditions and illnesses) because I HATE the side effects to the prescriptions! Plus I am trying to teach my 3, 5 and 7 year old daughters about the wonderful benefits mother nature has given us! 🙂 My oldest 2 are very interestedin learning about all the plants, trees, wildflowersand etc in our back yard! LOL
Hi Alice, so nice to read your comment! Yes, Japanese honeysuckle is perfect for this! It’s the type I have, too 🙂 And you are right – it is invasive and can really take over. I hope this tea can help your migraines…and wouldn’t that be awesome if it would help relieve some of your other issues, too? I hope you and your family have a wonderful Pennsylvania summer!
Try celery juice on an empty stomach every morning too. Medical medium.
I just found this growing in the wild the patch of forest next our house! I LOVE sun tea so I was super excited to find your recipe, I also have mint growing so I may have to toss some in the tea as well! We’ll see how it goes☺☺
That sounds delicious, Marcie!!
My tea doesn’t smell nice at all. Is it supposed to?
Hi there,
It should smell like honeysuckle. If yours doesn’t smell nice, I would throw it out…and try again if you wish!
Do you dry the flowers first or do you just crush them a little straight after you pick them
Fresh is best!