I did not know I had been approved for this book - was not contacted - did not see it till now and it has already been archived. Sorry. I was looking forward to reading it.

I love tea - my collection of tea spans two drawers and two cupboards. This book has given me a ton of ideas and I can't wait to add my own homemade tea to my collection.

Growing Your Own Tea Garden
by Jodi Helmer

Growing Your Own Tea Garden is bursting with practical instruction and illustrations for growing and cultivating delicious teas. An ideal guide for those do-it-yourself gardeners, environmentalist, and sustainable living; even helping beginning gardeners effectively and successfully design and plant a productive backyard tea garden. Growing Your Own Tea Garden provides a brief history on tea, a lot of prudent advice regarding plant identification, plant picking, and what to look for and what to look out for.

Growing Your Own Tea Garden has simple garden designs with cultivation advice, showing how to choose the right tea crops for a specific soil types and climates, includes instructions for growing tea in container gardens or in raised beds; with suggestions of herbs, and flowers to grow. Ms. Jodi adds ways in which readers might be able to grow teas, out of the growing zone (in the United States and Canada ONLY). Growing Your Own Tea Garden is user friendly and systematically organization, well-written and presented, and a recommended addition to personal and community libraries. I will be buying a copy for myself, it is that useful and worth the investment.

Author Jodi Helmer writes about food, gardening, farming, the environment and sustainable living. And here Ms. Helmer shows her readers a comprehensive investigation of herbal teas, black tea, green tea, white tea and herbal tea. Readers will discover how to grow and blend a full range of herbal infusions to make wonderful teas; from edible flowering plants, to adding chicory roots, rose hips, lemon verbena, peppermint, aromatic bergamot and much more. Ms. Jodi Helmer also shows her readers how to harvest, dry and store teas, for enjoying all year long, along with brewing tips and creative recipes.

This is the first tea gardening books I have read, and I believe would be useful even to those who have no intention of gardening; but simply want to educate themselves on the different types, blending of flavors and benefited medicinal properties of teas. I received a free copy of this informative book from Companion House Books. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with your readers. I have read this book of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work, and it is my opinion both are deserving of the full 5-star rating. Well done!

This is a wonderful and helpful book. I found the information interesting and useful. I learned more about tea and growing my own tea garden which was very helpful. I also found out about some items I didn't know about some of the items that could be used as teas -- very interesting. . I recommend this book and it will help me when deciding on growing a tea garden even having ideas on setting it up and what to grow in what type of garden to best serve our likes or needs. Great details, photos and graphs -- very helpful.

I really enjoyed the section on the history of tea. It showed information spread across numerous countries and I found myself learning a lot. I enjoyed reading through the book in general on my kindle, but this is definitely a book I would rather own and flip through from my book shelf and I have since added it to my wishlist. I look forward to continuing to read this book in print.

I was underwhelmed by this. I was hoping for something highly geared toward gardening, and this was mostly details about brewing and preparation of products from your tea garden. There was a small bit of information about gardening for each item, but less than I expected from the book’s title.

Like me I'm sure a lot of you drink tea, iced or hot it's delicious.
Have you ever thought of growing the herbs,berries,etc to make your own tea?
I'll have to admit I have made my own tea before but only one kind. I used the lemon mint in my yard. It's makes a lovely and refreshing tea.
If you're just starting out as a tea enthusiast or are already there but want a little more detailed instructions this book has everything you could possibly need to brew that delicious cup of tea.
It's amazing how many herbs,berries,etc. are listed here.
You will find complete instructions on how to grow it,where to grow it,what zone you can plant it in and how to harvest it and make that perfect cup of cold or hot tea. It also warns you about possible side effects of drinking too much of certain kinds of tea which I appreciate because it wasn't in other tea books I've read. I am all about natural foods and health with my body so this book is much appreciated. Very well written and I will be definitely reading more by this author.

Published May 14th 2019 by CompanionHouse Books
I was given a complimentary copy of this book. Thank you.
All opinions expressed are my own.

This is a fun and informative book filled with information on growing your own herbs and other plants for homemade teas of all sorts. The book starts with very thorough information on the history of tea and the kinds of tea (black, green, white, etc.) and then features many plants you can grow in your garden to make your own teas. It also includes some tea recipes.

Color photos are used throughout, though they are stock photos and not provided by the author. Stock photos seem to be used for the recipes too, which is always a disappointment to me as I want to see what the actual recipe looks like and not just a purchased photo of some sort of herbs and a cup of tea next to it. That said, it's got quite a lot of great information, especially for folks who are new to gardening.

I would have liked more tea recipes, more foraged and medicinal teas, and more information about the flavors, but it is a very helpful book and a great read.

My rating system:
1 = hated it
2 = it was okay
3 = liked it
4 = really liked it
5 = love it, plan to purchase, and/or would buy it again if it was lost

I read a temporary digital ARC of the book for the purpose of review.

4 1/2 stars

I have been fascinated by herbs since I was a tween, perhaps because of folklore or their ubiquity in literature or the mere fact that the old farmers I knew in West Virginia used fresh ones in such a commonplace manner, which I never saw in the city where I lived. And, even before that I was a tea drinker and still am. So it was only natural that I would be drawn to a book like Growing Your Own Tea Garden by Jodi Helmer.

Growing Your Own Tea Garden suggests possible herbs, flowers, and tea to grown in your home garden and the way in which you might grow them, if you’re out of the growing zone. Please note here that the growing information is geared toward the US and Canada. If you live in another region you might want to compare your average temperatures to the recommended growing zones.

Helmer provides a brief history on tea and mentions one I’d never heard of Yaupon, which is “the only native North American plant that contains caffeine.” Cool!

The section on which herbs, flowers, and fruits to grow for tea provides information on growing and how to make a tea from the ingredient. And, here again I learned something new. Cilantro is one of those herbs that I’ve heard that people either love or hate, but I didn’t know that it was because some people genetically taste it as “soap.” (Don’t you just love learning these things?)

There is a recipe section, which I love. While I consider myself a decent cook, I flounder around when considering teas. This section takes the guesswork out and might even give me confidence to branch out.

Growing Your Own Tea Garden contains a lot of prudent advice regarding plant identification, plant picking, and what to look for and what to look out for.

Growing Your Own Tea Garden is an excellent addition to your library if you are an herb and tea lover like me. Mind you, I have to pull out a lot of mint now to make room for other herbs, but it will be worth it.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Jodi Helmer brings us very precise information on what herbs and plants make good tea or tisanes, excellent pictures of those plants and recipes and suggestions for making beverages hot or cold. We have excellent instructions on the planting and growing of these herbs and spices and weeds, how to harvest and dry or prepare them green and what to beware of in our yards and fields.

I already have an extensive herb garden and many of those plants are tea producers - how neat! I had no idea the fennel I treasure for its seed and root would also be great for tea, along with thyme and rosemary, cilantro and yarrow. I can't wait to get out there and start sampling these teas and tisanes, and the suggested combinations of various herbs, as well. I was really pleased with my second-year growth of chamomile, which I adore, and now I have all these other options. Thank you!

I received a free electronic copy of this informative book from Netgalley, Jodi Helmer and CompanionHouse Books. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this book of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work.

This book was well-written and well-researched. It has been very informative while I put together my own herb/tea garden. I liked the pictures and the hands-on tips. I will absolutely pick up a copy!

This is one of the first tea gardening books I've read that I believe would be useful even to those who have no intention of gardening but simply want to educate themselves.

The book opens with a brief history of tea, then it gives a good overview of selecting all the plants for the tea garden, from true tea plants (Camellia sinensis) to those "teas" made with leaves, flowers, fruits, and roots. "Some of the most popular 'teas' are not tea at all," Helmer notes. "True tea is made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant; herbal teas, including popular brews such as chamomile and peppermint, are considered tisanes. Tisanes are made from ingredients such as herbs, flowers, fruits, bark, and roots but no white, green, black, or oolong teas."

The distinction is an important one to make, so even someone new to teatime will be clear about what is and isn't truly "tea" in the tea garden. I enjoy drinking tisanes as well as teas, and I learned a lot about the plants used to make tisanes (and flavor my Camellia sinensis) by reading this book. For instance, Helmer writes that "although bee balm smells like Earl Grey tea and was even used as a replacement for black tea after the Boston Tea Party, the essential oil used in the iconic tea is from a different plant." Doesn't that make you want to run out and get a bee balm plant?

Quite a few mints are featured in the book (along with the advice to plant them in pots so they don't overtake the garden), and readers will learn fun things like the fact that pineapple mint is a subspecies of apple mint, chocolate mint is a cultivar of peppermint, and 'Kentucky Colonel' mint is the cultivar preferred for mint juleps because of its large and attractive leaves.

For those of us who like the idea of making our own tisanes, Helmer has helpfully included lots of potential benefits as well as cautions for these plants. St. John's wort, for instance, is believed to be a natural antidepressant, yet it has been banned from products in France because of its potential interactions with certain medications, she says. Similarly, burdock is a plant which "might inhibit tumor growth," she notes, but it's also a diuretic and should be used carefully. The section on these plants was one of the most useful parts of the whole book and makes an excellent starting point for anyone who does wish to use tisanes to benefit their health.

The book also includes tips for harvesting plants, recipes for blending them, some suggestions for tea garden designs, and a resource list for further study. A quick, entertaining, and highly useful read, Growing Your Own Tea Garden is sure to get lots of tea drinkers reaching for their spades and shovels.

This is informative and the format is easy to understand without being cluttered. I enjoyed the tea making process and am excited to have a purpose in my garden. Overall, I would recommend this to anyone who wants a reason to garden and who also loves tea.

I love growing herbs, flowers and drinking tea, so when I noticed this book I just had to try it. This book will help you learn what herbs are great for making teas and the vitamins and nutrients each one has along with how to brew them.

I really enjoyed the history of tea section so informative as a matter of fact, this whole book is full of useful information, heck I never know you could use blackberry leaves in for tea, you learn something new every day. LOL.

Are you wanting to kick the habit of those carbonated no healthy syrup drinks? Well, grab this book pick some herbs you would like, buy the dirt and containers and get to growing. I plant most of my herbs into containers so they are easy to keep up with and handy to cut off when needed so this book just adds more excitement for me to use more of my herbs. Oh, and don’t forget a lot of flowers are great in tea, yep, this book covers it all herbs, fruit, and flowers

This book covers herbs, flowers different teas so you can understand what is different between white or black tea. How to dry your leaves, how to grow crops, herbal infusions and so much more.

Highly recommend to anyone that would like to expand their tea drinking horizons.

Love, love, love the book, Growing Your Own Tea Garden, as a gardener and avid tea drinker. The book starts off with a very interesting Brief History of Tea that begins with China back 2000 B.C , the use of tea bags, and goes to the modern day. Then to Choosing Plants for Your Tea Garden which goes into types of teas (Green, Black White, Oolong) and understanding the differences between them, Leave teas, Flower teas, Fruit teas, and Flower teas. She then discusses Brewing the Best Tea Garden with the Best Practices and Garden Designs. A great section is Making the Perfect Cup which has multiple sections: Brewing (tips for optimum brewing), Preserving the Harvest, Recipes (many great ones), Plant Hardiness Zones, Resources, and A Plant Index. I also love the medicinal use commentary. After reading this book, you can’t help but want to go out and start your own tea garden.

I was given the opportunity to read an ARC of Growing Your Own Tea Garden. Now I am more interested than ever to work on my own tea garden. Jodi Helmer does an amazing job in providing an excellent reference for growing, harvesting, mixing, and uses of the plants and plant parts. If you are interested in creating your own blends for a significantly lower amount than store bought mixes, this is the book for you. I will be getting a hard copy for myself.

An interesting book. I enjoyed learning about growing tea. This would make a delightful gift for tea drinkers.

This book offers a practical and easy to use guide to growing herbs and flowers in order to make your own tea. The book includes a Guide to the global history of tea. Each plant has a page with photographs telling you how to grow it and prepare tea from it. There is also information on blending, flavour and medicinal purposes.
This is a beautiful book I really enjoyed reading, and I’m keen to try growing some of the plants mentioned.
Worth noting it is US centric in the climate guides.

A good, quick introduction, a nice reference book. There's a plant index - and divided into categories (tea, leaves, flowers, fruits, roots). A mix of photographs and primary images. Introduced to a lot of facts and information. does has recipes and a reference page for both Canada and the US hardiness page.

This is a great book for a tea enthusiast that also likes to garden, though as it states in the book it is not an actual field guide, so you do need to know a little bit about the plants. It includes a history of tea, recipes that can be made by blending various types of teas, and growing guides for the various types of teas. In my opinion, the most useful thing it shows was a growing guide based on plant hardiness zone maps, which is particularly helpful when trying to decide what to plant. Also, the book contains step by step harvesting instructions, which is very useful as harvesting tea is not quite the same as harvesting things for canning, etc,. because you have to dry the leaves before storing.