This Fresh Lemongrass Tea recipe is easy to make and oh-so-addictive!
Some days are just so tiring, but sipping on this fresh lemongrass tea is certainly helping me perk up!
In a recent trip to London we swapped out our usual morning (and afternoon… and evening) coffees for hot tea with cream and sugar.
Every time we had a cup, we would smile over the steam rising from our mugs and say “why don’t we drink more tea at home?”
We continued our tea-drinking ways for the rest of the trip, and now that I’m home (where it’s HOT!) I am making pitchers of iced tea to get me through the day.
Now, you might remember me telling you that every time I get home from a trip abroad I crave Thai food like nobody’s business. I have no idea why this is, but it just happens so we’ll all have to accept it.
Lemongrass is one of my favorite Thai flavors. I keep a zipper bag of leftover lemongrass in my freezer, so I decided to pull it out and make use of the stems that are too rough for mincing (like for this yummy Vietnamese recipe).
Alright, so in the picture above, you’ll see (from left to right): tough end pieces, tender root pieces, and trimmed “grocery-store-herb-section” lemongrass root.
Many people want to know how to use lemongrass. I like to buy big bunches of lemongrass at my local Asian supermarket and keep it in the freezer. I use the tender root pieces for curries, and save the tough end stalks for making this lemongrass tea recipe!
Technically I’m not sure we can even call this “tea” because it doesn’t contain any “tea leaves” per say, but you should stop being so nit-picky and just make it anyway. It is a great lemongrass recipe, and if you want to call it lemongrass water or a lemongrass drink, I’m okay with it. You will enjoy it either way!
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Ready to learn how to make lemongrass tea?
Here’s the Recipe!
Addictive Fresh Lemongrass Tea
This Fresh Lemongrass Tea recipe is easy to make and oh-so-addictive!
Ingredients
- 4 cups water
- 2 cups roughly chopped lemongrass stalks
- 1/4 cup sugar
- Lime wheels for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Bring the water to a boil over high heat in a medium saucepan.
- Add the lemongrass and boil rapidly for 5 minutes.
- Reduce the heat to low and simmer the tea for an additional 5 minutes.
- Strain the stalks from the liquid. Stir in the sugar until dissolved.
- Serve warm, or chill in the refrigerator and pour over ice.
Notes
This recipe calls for roughly chopping the lemongrass stalks. So, what does that mean? Chopping is cutting food into bite-sized pieces using a knife. If something is to be finely chopped, the pieces should be smaller than bite sized, and for roughly chopped, the pieces should be slightly bigger.
Nutrition Information
Yield 8 Serving Size 1 cupAmount Per Serving Calories 43Total Fat 0gSaturated Fat 0gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 0gCholesterol 0mgSodium 6mgCarbohydrates 11gFiber 0gSugar 6gProtein 0g
Nutrition information has been auto-calculated for your convenience.
Please note that this lemongrass tea recipe can also be spelled lemon grass tea recipe.
Comments
Hello! Novice cook here. How do you define “roughly chopped”? Like an inch each? Does it matter? 🙂
Thanks!
Hi Eileen,
Great question. Chopping is cutting food into bite-sized pieces using a knife. If something is to be finely chopped, the pieces should be smaller than bite sized, and for roughly chopped, the pieces should be slightly bigger.
– Linda
Thank you very much! Having this tonight!
OMG I just made this, used brown sugar, it’s amazing! SO true, it is addictive!
Thanks so much for sharing! Best of all, so easy to make! Much love xx
Lol…one hundred and ten thumbs up…
I love Lemongrass TEA!!!!!
Could lemongrass root be used in place of the stalks? If so how much root much to you think would work?
I wouldn’t use lemongrass root. Instead see the substitutes in this article: https://www.spiceography.com/lemongrass-substitute/
– Linda
Have never made lemongrass tea with sugar. Will do. Another recipe is add crushed ginger and/or mint leaves, brew for a little while, pour in a cup and add lemon juice….. Super for a cold winter morning!
I only use the leaves that have grown tall, 2 feet say. cause we also here in
Guatemala have several pots growing to prevent mosquitoes from joining us
on the patio, works great.
we do not add sugar or honey,just maybe a few cloves and dried turmeric bark.
Why haven’t I made this sooner! The key word is addictive! OMG, I could drink this all the time…except after 5pm I may need to add vodka. I just might tonight in fact! This is so fun. Lemongrass is one of my all time favorite things, this is so cool!
I’ve been growing lemongrass out on my porch for the past year to keep away the mosquito. (Works great!) I knew people cook with it, and had wondered if it could be made into a tea. I found your post and tried it. I thought it was okay, but my son LOVES it. Looks like I may have to split up the plant to start growing it for tea.
i know this sounds mean, but im really annoyed at the fact that you call this tea. It’s a lemongrass drink. It does not contain tea. Please do not call it tea. Sorry if this some how offends you, but the recipe looks dumb to me without any tea in it and calling itself that.
Thanks for your feedback, Briana! You’re right, and as I mentioned in my post, this doesn’t really qualify as a “tea.” Cheers!
For NitPicky Briana: Of course this is tea! Anything you brew like this is a tea. It is an herbal tea in this case, just as much as Nettles tea, Echinacea tea, Peppermint tea, etc. Even compost when brewed is called “compost tea”. Too bad you are so easily annoyed and for nothing. Cheers.
Tea definition:
1. a hot drink made by infusing the dried crushed leaves of the tea plant in boiling water.
“Katherine sipped her tea”
2. the evergreen shrub or small tree which produces tea leaves, native to southern and eastern Asia and grown as a major cash crop.
According to definition 1 Tea is made with leaves, hence lemongrass tea. Couldn’t be more simple than that.
Cheers to lemongrass tea!