Hagebuttentee

Hagebuttentee is winter table and sickbed table, the deep red cup Germans know from kitchens, thermos flasks, and old cupboards where dried rosehips waited for cold months. It belongs wherever the hedgerows give hips after the first frost, especially in the south and east where people also turn them into Hiffenmark or Hagebuttenmark, rosehip jam. In the north you'll often meet it as a plain fruit tea; further south someone may sweeten it harder or sharpen it with lemon. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders.

The argument is simple: bag or hips. The tea bag gives colour quickly and often not much else. Nicht aus dem Glas, and not from a perfumed packet if you can avoid it. Cut dried rosehip shells give you tart fruit, a little body, and that clear ruby colour that tells you the larder did its work.

The technique is the quiet simmer. Start the hips cold, bring them up slowly, then keep the pot barely moving and covered. Dried rosehip skin is tough; it needs time to soften and release flavour, but a hard boil roughens the cup and drives off the fresh edge. Das braucht seine Zeit, only not much of it.

Strain it fine and sweeten after tasting. A good Hagebuttentee should wake the mouth a little, not taste like red sugar water. Schön ist, was schmeckt.