HerbalTeaHour.com is excited to write about one of our favorite ways to avail ourselves to the benefits of Rosehips – Rosehip Powder! Never heard of Rosehips? Please take a look at HTH’s Ultimate Guide to Rosehips where we’ve written a user friendly guide that contains everything you’ve ever wanted to know about this awesome herb. Once you’ve studied up with the Ultimate Guide, its time to learn about Rosehip Powder!
ROSEHIP POWDER: GUIDE
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HerbalTeaHour.com has written this article for one single purpose – to be the herbal tea community’s #1 free source for everything you need to know about Rosehip Powder. Because this is a rather broad topic, we’ve decided to break this post down into a number of separate categories. We start with a little background information on Rosehips (sometimes referred to as Rose Hips) so that you can get up to speed on the basics of the Rosehips.
Next, we have included a section that generally describes how you can make Rosehip Powder by yourself – a fun experiment for the do-it-yourselfers out there! Next, we’ve included a fun recipe where you can use Rosehip Powder as the leading ingredient. After that, we’ve included a link to one of our favorite kinds of Rosehip Powder where you can visit the product page to learn more and decide whether Rosehip Powder is something you’d like to try! Finally, we’ve added a short section detailing our own experiences with Rosehip Powder – we’d love for you to share your experiences with us as well! Ready to dig in?!
Rosehip Powder: The Basics
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Its not time to learn some of the basics about Rosehips. The terms “Rosehips” and “Rose Hips” are used to describe the same thing. The word “hips” refers to the fruit of a rose. Yes, the Rose “hip” is the rounded portion of the rose flower that is located just below the Rose’s petals. What do the “hips” do? What is their purpose?The hips contain the seeds of the rose plant itself. For that reason, it is possibly one of the most important parts of the Rose plant itself.
Now that you know the basics of the “hips”, what about the powder? We go into detail about how to make Rosehip Powder below, but that isn’t much good if you don’t know what the powder is in the first place. Rosehip Powder is what results after fresh Rosehips are harvested, allowed to dry for the appropriate period of time, are then sliced open to remove the seeds and hairs, have been dehydrated in the oven, and have been placed into a food processor to be pulverized. The resulting Rosehip Powder is commonly used in herbal teas, healthy smoothies, over yogurt and in many other types of food and drink!
Rosehip Powder: How its Made
HerbalTeaHour.com has created the checklist below for you to use as a guide when you make your own Rosehip Powder. Remember, later on we’re going to include a link where you can buy pre-made Rosehip Powder – definitely easier than doing it yourself! That said, even if you don’t make your own powder, we thought you might be interested in how it is done! The below will make approximately 1/2 cup of dried Rosehip Powder.
- The first step is to harvest or acquire 3 cups of fresh Rosehips.
- These should be sourced from wild bushes (that have not been treated with pesticides or chemicals).
- The best time to make the harvest (or acquisition) is generally towards the end of October until the second week of November. Of course, this date may move forward or backward depending on how far north or south you are (as daylight and temperature are key factors).
- Start by removing both the stem end and blossom end of the Rosehip.
- After trimming, it is time to thoroughly wash and dry. Be sure to treat thoroughly to remove any lingering chemicals or contaminants.
- To dry, we suggest placing the now washed and trimmed Rosehips on newspaper (use only a single sheet of newspaper – doing so yields better drying results).
- Allow washed and trimmed Rosehips to dry out – approximately 4 days.
- After drying, it is time to slice each Rosehip in half to prepare for seed and hair removal.
- Use a small knife and small spoon to extract the seeds and hairs. Some people use the seeds and hairs for other purposes (like itching powder!) but let’s keep them out of our Rosehip Powder.
- Once all of the seeds and hairs have been removed, you’ll want to preheat your oven to its very lowest heat (this is for additional drying).
- Locate the newspaper dried Rosehip halves on a one layer baking sheet
- The drying time will depend on the size of the Rosehip halves (with smaller halves taking ~4 hours and larger halves taking ~7 hours or longer).
- One way to test to see if the Rosehips are fully dried is to pick one up (don’t burn yourself!) and push to see if the entire halve is hard. If you can depress the skin by touch, the Rosehip halve is not dry enough!
- Once fully hardened, dehydrated and allowed to cool to room temperature, dump the Rosehip halves into your food processor.
- I have had luck using a run of the mill food processor that has a “pulverize” or “crush” setting, though this particular food processor is my “experimental” processor (a/k/a – not the one we keep in the kitchen).
- Some HTH readers have suggested using a specialized high strength food processor as the Rosehip halves can be quite tough and a higher strength processor will break them down into Rosehip Powder more quickly.
- After pulverized, pour the Rosehip Powder through a very fine strainer (filter or separator – just like we show in the image below) and into mason jars that can be screwed tight for storage!
Rosehip Powder: Simple and Fun Recipe
Ok, now that you have the Rosehip Powder, what are you going to do with it? Well, if you’ve made it yourself (by following the how to guide above) we want to reiterate that you’ll need to be very, very careful to assure yourself that all of the hairs have been removed from the Rosehip Powder that you’ve created. Lingering hairs that are accidentally ingested can lead to very uncomfortable digested problems!
Easy to Follow Rosehip Powder Recipe
Ingredients (makes one serving)
- 1/2 cup of coconut milk
- 1/4 cup of coconut water
- 1/2 cup of sliced fruit (we use mangos)
- 3/4 cup of your favorite berries (blueberries are my favorite)
- 1 tablespoon of fresh Rosehip Powder (DIY or Store-bought)
- 1/8 teaspoon of vanilla extract (or other preferred sweetener)
- 1 teaspoon of Flax seeds.
- Add honey in your desired amount. The more the sweeter! You can add it after blending as well).
- Add ice cups if you want to make a cool blended ice smoothie.
- You could also forgo the ice cubs for now and pour over ice upon serving.
Easy to Follow Instructions
- Slice the fruits, measure the berries and prepare your liquids by using appropriate measuring devices.
- As with any smoothie, you’ll want to add your liquids first, so now is the time to add the coconut milk and water.
- The slices of fruit should go into the blender next, followed by your selected type of berry (whether one or more), and then your other dried ingredients (like seeds or nuts).
- Secure the lid to the top of the blender (trust me, I’ve made the mistake of pressing “on” before securing my blender’s lid – not good)!
- Blend the mixture on high for about 30 seconds.
- After the 30 seconds, I usually stop to add additional coconut milk, honey, or any other type of sweetener (agave nectar) to the Rosehip smoothie.
- After 30 seconds of additional blending, you are ready to pour and serve. Enjoy!
Rosehip Powder: Buy the Best
Sure, it can be fun to “do it yourself” and make Rosehip Powder the old fashioned way. That said, after making the powder on a few different occasions, I found that the pre-packaged powder (linked to above) was my better bet.
This particular Rosehip Powder is sold in 16oz increments. The manufacturer suggests 1/4 teaspoon serving sizes which, by my count, means there are just over 900 servings in the 16oz bag. This Rosehip Powder is USDA Certified Organic.
This manufacturer has been around for quite some time and, as you can see from their product page, they are accomplished in other types of fruit, herb and vegetable derived powders. The Rosehip is well ground, resulting in a nice texture.
The Rosehip Powder itself is basically free from flavor, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a hint of something. Some have said it smells or tastes somewhat like dried pecans. I think it tastes a little bit like a dried fig or apricot of sorts. Either way, the taste isn’t enough to take away from the food product into which you ultimately incorporate the powder.
My Experience: Rosehip Powder
I began using Rosehip Power when a friend told me that I could make the powder by myself. I thought it sounded like a fun challenge! After all, I had a source of fresh Rosehip in the garden and I wanted to try to incorporate the Rosehip into my diet in a way other than the herbal tea (which I had been consuming for years).
I knew that the Rosehip Powder was absolutely loaded with Vitamin C, and perhaps a boosted immunity was the first real and noticeable side effect I derived from my incorporation of the Rosehip Powder into my diet.
The best part about using the powder (instead of an herbal tea or even a Rosehip Extract) is that the powder can be used in a ton of different food offerings. We mention smoothies above, but many readers report adding Rosehip Powder to their granola, yogurt, cereal and any number of other items (even salads and teas!). Make sure you write in to HTH and share any other recipes or ways you’ve discovered to add Rosehip Powder to your diet!
ROSEHIP POWDER: CONCLUSION
I hope this article about Rosehip Powder has been helpful to you. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t know much about Rosehip other than that it was a part of the rose bush. Little did I know that it could be used in herbal teas, powders and even extracts! The Rosehip Powder is perhaps the most versatile of all of the different offshoots of the Rosehip base. We particularly like that you can store the Rosehip powder for extended periods of time (just use air tight Mason jars) and that it is very easy to travel with!
If you’ve made it to this point in this HerbalTeaHour.com article and find that you still have questions about Rosehip Powder, or even just Rosehip in general, we would sincerely encourage you to comment on the comment board below. We read and reply to all comments and are passionate about engaging and interacting with this herbal tea community! In particular, we’d love for you to share other Rosehip Powder recipes! We are always looking for the next tasty Rosehip based snack!
Rosehip Powder: Comments
Had you ever heard of Rosehips before reading this article? What about Rosehip Powder? Did you know that you could make it yourself? What did you decide to do – the “do it yourself” or “store-bought” approach? Have you ever tried a Rosehip smoothie? Did you make one with the recipe that we’ve included above? What other ways do you like to use Rosehip Powder? Be sure to post on the comments board below. We read and respond to every comment and love interacting with this herbal tea community!
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