The Perfect Summer Tea

If you pick your sumac fruits too early, you end up with slightly yellow water and the merest trace of flavor. Make sure your fruits are deepest red, and have a sour tang to them when you taste a drupe-it should be a pretty potent flavor.

Doctor Seuss was definitely consulted when this plant was created.

From the fluffy, alien looking fruits, to the scraggly antler-like fuzzy branches, this plant is straight out of the Lorax.
 
Its also one of our more charismatic New England plants, and makes one of my favorite teas for hot weather.

If infusion is the good cop of medicine making, decoction is the hard hitting bad cop. It’s used mostly for tougher plant materials, such as roots, seeds, barks, and hard berries.

An infusion is made by pouring water over plant material then allowing it to steep. That’s it. When you make a cup of Red Zinger or English Breakfast, you are technically making an infusion.