what are nettles good for: #2
28 April 2008 by colouritgreen
#2 Interesting home education experiment: colour changing nettle tea
I got this idea from this site when I was looking for recipes for nettle tea. Actually you don’t need a recipe for nettle tea.. it is nettles and hot water! … but best to choose young nettle tips. The tea will be green.. darker green the stronger you make it - but interesting, if you change the acidity of the tea by adding a slice of lemon, the colour changes too, from green to orangey-pink. My son and I tried it today, the first go was barely coloured, and although we did detect a colour change it was pretty unimpressive. The tea was ok.. but rather similar to hot water with lemon…. one nettle tip is not enough!!
So with the teapot stuffed with nettles we tried again, the colour was dark green, the lemon went in and the colour changed - yay!. The tea was disgusting. So… I don’t think I am set to become a fan of nettle tea, but we did enjoy the colour change experiment.
You could try dying some of your wool with nettles, they make green or darker green (most plants seem to make some shade of green or mud, bit boring really) I only just remembered as my mum’s planning on dying some of her wool with some.
I’ll try to remember to take some photo’s and post them up when she’s done it. Need some dry weather first though
yes - good idea!