Lemongrass Tea (Hari Chai Patti): Grow a Pot, Brew It, Stay Safe

Run your thumbnail down a lemongrass leaf and your hand smells like lemon peel for an hour. That’s the whole charm of hari chai patti, and the good news is one supermarket stalk can become a pot on your balcony that gives you lemongrass tea all summer.

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Hari chai patti, lemongrass and the citronella confusion

In Pakistani and North Indian homes, “hari chai” usually means the long, flat, grassy leaves of Cymbopogon citratus, tossed into boiling doodh patti or brewed on their own. In Kerala and Sri Lanka, on the other hand, cooks reach for the pale, fat lower stalk and bruise it into coconut curries. Same plant. Different parts.

What you must not brew is citronella grass, Cymbopogon nardus or winterianus. It looks very similar, it’s sold at nurseries as a “mosquito plant”, and if you crush a leaf the smell is sharper and closer to floor cleaner than to lemon, because citronella is grown for oil, not for the cup. If a nursery label says citronella, or you’re unsure, don’t drink it.

How to tell good lemongrass

• Fresh leaves are bright green, stiff and slightly sharp along the edge, with a clean lemony smell when bruised.
• Stalks should be firm and heavy, pale green to cream at the base, not dry and hollow.
• Yellowed, floppy leaves still brew. Weakly.
• Dried lemongrass should be green-gold and fragrant. Grey and scentless? Old.

Growing a pot of lemongrass

It’s one of the easiest kitchen plants there is. It wants heat, sun and water. Most South Asian balconies have all three in abundance from March to October, whether you asked for them or not.

1. Buy 3 or 4 fresh stalks with the base intact. Trim the top so each is about 15 cm long and peel off any dry outer layer.
2. Stand them in a glass with 3 to 4 cm of water on a bright windowsill. Change the water every 2 days.
3. In 2 to 3 weeks, white roots about 2 to 3 cm long appear. That’s your cue.
4. Plant them 5 cm deep in a pot at least 30 cm wide and 30 cm deep, with drainage holes. Use garden soil mixed roughly half and half with compost.
5. Place where it gets 6 hours of direct sun. Water whenever the top 2 cm of soil feels dry; in peak summer that can be daily.
6. Start harvesting leaves after about 2 months. Cut outer leaves 10 cm above the soil with scissors, never pull the whole clump.
7. In winter, cut the clump back to 15 cm. In cold northern areas where frost comes, move the pot indoors near a sunny window and water sparingly.

Wear sleeves when you trim a big clump. Trust us. The leaf edges can give you fine, stinging paper cuts that you won’t even notice until you wash your hands with soap that evening.

Lemongrass tea recipe, plain and with milk

Plain hari chai (serves 2)

1. Wash 4 fresh leaves, each about 30 cm long, or 1 fresh stalk. Cut the leaves into 3 cm pieces; bruise the stalk with a rolling pin.
2. Bring 500 ml water to the boil in a small pan.
3. Add the lemongrass and 2 slices of fresh ginger if you like. Lower the heat and simmer 5 minutes, lid on.
4. Turn off the heat and leave 2 minutes more. Strain. Add a few pudina leaves or a squeeze of lemon, and sweeten lightly if needed.

Only have dried? Use 1 level teaspoon (about 1 g) per cup and steep in just-boiled water for 5 minutes.

In doodh patti

For two cups of regular milk tea, add 3 leaves cut into short lengths along with the tea leaves, simmer as usual, and strain. Lovely in the monsoon. Rinse your mouth with water afterwards. Same as any chai.

What elders did with it

If you already keep tulsi or pudina in pots, lemongrass makes a natural third, and the three brew well together in one pot, the tulsi peppery, the pudina cool, the lemongrass bright, which is about as close to a balcony kadha as you’ll get without a grandmother supervising.

Myths people repeat

“Lemongrass tea washes out the kidneys.” Your kidneys don’t need washing. They manage. A warm, pleasant drink adds fluid, and that’s about as far as honest claims go.

“Growing it on the balcony keeps all mosquitoes away.” Sadly, no. The oil in crushed leaves smells strong, but a living plant sitting quietly in a pot doesn’t create any sort of protective zone around your chair, and the mosquitoes haven’t read the claim. Use nets and proper repellents where dengue and malaria are a concern.

“A few drops of the essential oil in water is the same thing, only stronger.” No. Essential oil is extremely concentrated, a few drops holding what a whole armful of leaves would give you, and it should never be swallowed or given to children. The leaf is the kitchen ingredient.

When the pot struggles

Yellow tips and a pale clump usually mean too little sun or tired soil, so move it to the brightest spot you have and top-dress with 2 cm of compost. Brown, soft stems at the base? Waterlogging. Check the drainage holes aren’t blocked and let the top soil dry between waterings. If the clump fills the pot after a year or two, tip it out in spring, pull it apart into two or three pieces with roots, and replant. You’ll have spare pots to give away, which is how lemongrass has always travelled between neighbours’ courtyards, one rooted clump in a plastic bag at a time, handed over the wall along with a bowl of whatever was cooking that day.

How much and how to store it

One or two cups a day is a sensible everyday amount for adults, and fresh cut leaves keep 7 to 10 days in the fridge if you wrap them in a slightly damp kitchen towel and slip that inside a bag. Drying your own is easy. Cut leaves into 2 cm pieces and spread them in shade for a week until they snap, then store in a glass jar for up to a year. Stalks freeze whole for 3 months.

For more home brews from the garden and pantry, from the pot of tulsi by the door to the jar of dried herbs at the back of the masala cupboard, head to Desi Remedies, or try our gentler evening cup, babuna chamomile tea.