This summer, Chiswick House and Gardens is offering visitors the chance to pick leaves and flowers from the Kitchen Garden and create their own, individually-blended herbal teabag.

The scheme, which kicks off on Friday July 5th, will run on Fridays, during the Kitchen Garden’s opening hours (10.30am to 3.30pm).

Visitors to the 17th-century walled garden will be able to pick up a sustainable paper tea bag, free of charge and put together their own unique blend to take home, choosing from a range of organic herbs and plants grown by the Chiswick House gardeners and volunteers in the Tea Garden.

While some of the plants available might be familiar to tea-lovers, others will likely be more unusual: chamomile, spearmint and peppermint sit alongside sage (a clean, earthy, slightly bitter flavour) and lemon verbena (a distinctive citrusy aroma and tang).

Participants will be able to discover a range of infusions, including blends said to reduce stress and aid sleep, containing herbs and flowers like lavender and passionflower; infusions used to boost immunity and health, like sage, nettle, achillia and calendula; digestive-aids like mint and fennel, and energy-giving monarda and tulsi.

Finally, the scheme will also offer visitors the chance to find out more about the sustainable, organic growing practices used by the Kitchen Garden team, and about ways to ensure their own tea drinking is as environmentally friendly as possible.

Some mass-produced paper tea bags can be difficult to dispose of in an environmentally beneficial way, due to the fact they contain a small amount of a nonbiodegradable plastic called polypropylene, used to seal the bag. Other brands produce tea bags that are themselves made of plastic.

The bags used in the Chiswick House scheme, however, are made entirely of paper and are fully biodegradeable.

Head of Gardens Rosie Fyles said:

By creating your own tea bag in our Tea Garden, using seasonal herbs and plants including spearmint, peppermint and chamomile, as well as more unusual flavours like horsetail and sage, you can learn more about the tastes and properties of different infusions, and go on enjoy one of the freshest freshly-brewed cups of tea you’ll ever try. You can also find out more about how we’re doing things differently in our kitchen garden: from organic, sustainable growing practices, to no-kill pest control, to a no dig policy that benefits the health of the soil and protects its natural structure.

The create your own tea bag scheme will run in the Chiswick House Kitchen Gardens this summer, on Fridays only, beginning on Friday July 5th. The will be no charge for the herbs, plants or tea bag, although visitors will be restricted to one per person.