Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis) is one of my favorite herbs. It’s in the mint family so it has a square stem and a lovely fragrance. It’s leaves have a distinctive lemony aroma and it tastes so good in teas. Sometimes it will have either pale pink or whiteish flowers.
There are a lot of uses for Lemon Balm but I’ll just share what I use it for. Remember though that I am not a health care professional, read my disclaimer page located in the right sidebar.
Lemon Balm contains a isomer called citral. It’s similar to citronella which keeps insects away. Lemon Balm is a good natural insect repellant. So you can keep a pot of it on your deck, porch or pool to help with that. If you put it in the ground to grow, it will soon take over your whole garden. That’s why most people grow mint in big pots. The pots can be set into the ground if desired but the mint will grow over the edges of the pot into the ground!
It also contains a chemical called rosmarinic acid. This chemical works to give relief from anxiety and nervousness. Lemon Balm does have a calming effect when used in a tea. It’s a lot like chamomile in how gently it works.
Another thing that Lemon Balm is good for is digestion. If you have a little trouble with indigestion after eating, a cup of Lemon Balm tea can really help. Like most mints it contains menthol which has a relaxing effect on the muscles of the digestive tract.
To get the benefits of it’s calming effect or muscle relaxing effects, I make a tea using about 2 teaspoons of dried Lemon Balm, 1 or 2 teaspoons of honey and 6 ounces of very hot, but not boiling, water. Let it steep for 5-8 minutes. I would drink this 3 or 4 times a day to get good relief. You don’t need to sweeten it if you’d rather not, it’s very tasty by itself. You don’t want to use boiling water on herbs, it destroys a lot of the helpful chemicals in the herbs.
Lemon Balm is good as a tea because it has that lemony-minty flavor, but you can also add it to any other tea for a nice, bright lift in the flavor. I enjoy adding some dried Lemon Balm to my English Breakfast tea.
Ideally, Lemon Balm, and most all other herbs, should be cut in the morning before the heat of the day takes over. In the morning the essential oils in the herbs are at their peak. Try not to wash them before drying them, just shake them off, pull off any dead or brown leaves and pull off anything that isn’t herb.
I dry Lemon Balm at 95 degrees F for about 6 hours. Depending on how moist the herb is, it could take a longer or shorter time. After it’s dried I chop it up in my food processor and store it in a glass jar.
Hello and welcome! I'm Sylvia Britton, and I've been online since 1996 offering encouragement and help in the spirit of Titus 2 and Proverbs 31 at Christian Homekeeper. CHK is the original Homekeeping site on the internet. There have been a few knockoffs of the name, but this is the original.
