Every year, Sorrel flowers and fruits in the months of December and January.  That is why I call it the Christmas Plant of Belize.  It is also green and red so it fits in with the whole theme.

I have been a busy little bee collecting sorrel over the holidays.  It is quite intensive work so you really have to like the plant to do all this.  After harvesting, the fruit needs to be removed from the seed pod and this involves scoring around the base of the fruit to pop out the pod.  This gets quite repetitive especially after the hundredth one!

I had quite a bit of sorrel so I sun-dried the fruit to store in jars.

The fruit of the plant can be used to make a tea or a cool drink and it has a lovely, berry-like tart flavour.  To make a tea simply use between 10 to 20 calyces per cup and boil for about 5 minutes until it is a deep red colour.  This hibiscus has many medicinal properties including lowering your blood pressure so it is well worth the effort.  It you would like to know more about the useful properties of Hibiscus sabdariffa, check out my link in the library.

 

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