For anyone who wants free tea with health giving qualities it is easy now to gather enough leaves of Rosebay willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium) to make Ivan Chai or Koporye tea with several recipes online.
Rosebay is found throughout most of Britain and is one of the first plants to colonise wasteland or disturbed land, woodland clearings or verges.  It is also known as fireweed, due to its ability to quickly colonise burnt ground and during the Second World War it became known as bombweed because it thrived in the ruins and rubble of bombsites. In fact because the pink flowers made the bomb sites look very pretty it was chosen as the county flower to represent London. On my first visits to the centre of London as a child I remember seeing great areas of rosebay but saw hardly any last week since the subsequent development in the City. Each plant can have up to 80,000 seeds which can be blown long distances on the slightest breeze and the heat from fires can help to germinate the “Fireweed” seeds.
Rosebay willowherb tea was first mentioned in the 12th century and was once all the rage in Britain. Apparently the tea has a pleasant aroma and fresh, slightly tart taste. It also does not contain caffeine, so that the tea has a calming effect and seems to have several potential health benefits including helping digestion, supporting the immune system and having anti-inflammatory and anti-tumour properties especially for prostrate cancer.
Its taste is reported to have been more popular than the classic black tea in the late 19th Century, but the reasons for it falling out of fashion are less clear. Russian sources claim that the East India Company began a targeted smear campaign against ‘Ivan’s tea’. The aim was to discredit the delicious Russian brew so as to remove it as a competitor from the British market. Others point to the collapsing of commercial production in Russia as a result of the Russian Revolution.
It had been Russia’s second most important export to Europe.
With so much rosebay willowherb around before it all goes to seed, I might try to make some tea which will actually take a few days to allow for the fermentation and drying.