dandelion tea is a great herbalist tool for improving fluid retention lowering blood pressure regulating your blood sugar and improving eczema dandelion has a lot of uses and tea is probably the most straightforward way to get the benefit of dandelions before you make your tea consider your full dandelion tea experience where are you going to get your dandelions there are lots of exciting places now you probably don't want to get them in a public place where the gardeners might be spraying pesticides dandelions really are your best wild foraging opportunity your best opportunity to explore forests and meadows and all of the wild places that will also give you a great opportunity to hike and breathe fresh air here in the giant Sequoia National Forest we find them in the high mountain meadows in the spring and they're just wonderful I've seen them along the coast I've seen them on riverbanks I've seen them in the most amazing places you want to make sure that where you do find your dandelions it's legal to pick them be polite of course leave some for the bees but taking the full experience and you can use all parts of the dandelion for this tea you can use the flowers the stems the leaves you can even use the roots and all you will do is take your dandelion parts and pour hot water over them and allow them to steep if I want my dandelion to be as beneficial as possible in terms of for my health I might let it sit overnight first I let the mixture simmer for about thirty minutes and then probably turn the heat off at that point and I put a lid on it and let it sit overnight in this long period of steeping the water will take in a lot of the beneficial properties of the dandelion making it an even healthier tea for you and so then you're gonna strain out the solids from the liquid and the liquid is going to be your tea depending on the amount of dandelion you put in it it could be very strong the flavor might be too strong you can dilute it of course and sweeten it to taste make this tea your own just like you made the foraging experience your own see how it works for you I use it for water retention and you know when your hands feel like little sausages this tea works very very well when I clinched my fingers and get that sausage feeling after about a day of the dandelion tea they no longer feel like sausages so it really does work for that experiment with it and see if it works for you find other dandelion recipes on the fresh bites daily website and we have lots of other information about herbs and spices and foraging and all kinds of fun stuff