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You’re wondering how to make tea blends, and I’m here to tell you it’s easier than you think.

I’m a pretty simple gal. But I guess I might be… just kinda… a little bit of a tea snob. In fact, even my “coffee” is tea.

When I started drinking exclusively loose leaf tea rather than tea bags, I started to wonder why I couldn’t make my own teas with things I had laying around already. Turns out, I can! With a simple formula I learned from a friend at my favorite organic tea company making your own tea blends is not only easy and delicious but can save you money too.

How to make tea blends?

Join me in my tea “snobbery” and lets make our own flavorful teas together.

Making your own tea blends

I wasn’t always this crazy lady… over here blending up new teas all the time.

In fact, concocting my own teas was something that seemed way too complicated to me… in fact, I didn’t even know it was possible.

But over the years, I would find many different teas that I really loved except for one little thing… too much cinnamon or not enough mint… that sort of thing. I finally got up the courage to see if this was something I could do myself.

I started making my own tea blends by trying to recreate teas. Then I did a really crazy thing and tried to make my own organic blend that tastes like Bill’s favorite tea bags that I knew were bleached bags holding pesticide-laden tea.

Spoiler alert: I succeeded! I tell you how in this video:

Once I gained some confidence (getting your husband to replace a life-long tea habit for your knockoff recipe will do that to a girl), I realized that the most fun thing about the process was actually creating my own blends, from scratch.

Giving homemade tea blends as a gift

I also learned that friends were fascinated with my tea blends (I think they actually think I have a super power), so I started gifting away my tea blends. It turns out that gifting homemade teas is a simple thing that makes a friend feel very pampered and loved. It’s a win-win.

Add a jar of simple syrup and your friends will start asking you where you hide your super hero cape. I explain the easiest way to make simple syrups here. And I created a gift tag for you to add to your simple syrups here.

If you’d like a homemade holiday-themed tea blend that’s perfect for gift giving, you need this recipe: Make the Best Christmas Tea 

So let’s start building up your tea-blending super powers, shall we?

What is the process of tea blending?

While there are tons of methods you can follow to make your tea blends, I like to keep things simple and follow this formula, choosing something that falls into each category.

1. Base — This is what “holds” your blend together, flavor wise. The base tea is often a black, green, herbal, oolong, or rooibos tea. If you want to add caffeine, or intentionally keep the caffeine level moderate, or make your blend caffeine-free, this is where you need to keep that in mind.
2. Support — This part of your blend will enhance the base and develop the flavor of your tea, but it’s usually not the most flavorful part of your blend. Bonus if you add in functional herbs here, because they can act like an additional base and also help to support you as well. Just a few favorites are cinnamon “chips” (these are broken, hard pieces of a cinnamon stick, not the processed cinnamon flavored baking chips), chamomile, mint, and basil.
3. Accent — This is where you add in some extra fun and flavor, usually a spice or fruit or something to carry the top notes of the blend that is distinct enough to taste it over your base. Cinnamon, dried fruit, cacao nibs, etc.
4. Visual — This category is one I often skip, but it’s fun to think about adding, especially if you’re making tea blends as gifts. You can add things like blue cornflower, safflowers and other little pops of color to make your blend extra pretty (you don’t want the visuals to add to flavor most of the time).

A simple formula for creating tea blends

Once you’ve chosen your ingredients, the next step is to decide how much you want of each item.

Essentially, there are 3 parts to a good tea blend:

1. The Base: Mix your base item and support item in a 3-to-1 ratio. (So add 1 tsp of support for every 3 tsp of base.)
2. The Accent: Add in your accent item in a 6-to-1 ratio to the base item. (So add 1/2 tsp of an accent item for every 3 tsp of base.)
3. The Visual Element: This one is optional, but if you’re adding a visual element (again, totally optional), add that in in a 12-to-1 ratio. (So add 1/4 tsp of visual element for every 3 tsp of base.)

Of course, these ratios certainly aren’t set in stone, feel free to play around these general guidelines and make teas that taste best to you.

How do you make tea at home?

In addition to following the simple 3-step formula above, there is an important tip to keep in mind as you start mixing your own tea blends.

My biggest tip when you’re just starting out creating tea blends? Start really small.

You don’t want to waste the ingredients if a blend doesn’t taste how you had hoped. There’s nothing worse than your vision for a delicious tea blend not being fulfilled AND wasting tons of ingredients!

When I’m building a new blend, I start with 1-2 spoonfuls of loose leaf tea as the base, just barely enough to steep one mug and taste it.

But… can I really make my own teas?