Question: Two cups of lemon balm tea, but they’re different colors! Sourced from the same place, steeped for the same amount of time.  There’s only one difference! What is it this time?

Answer: Whole dried herb versus cut and sifted herb. The tea on the left I used dried whole lemon balm leaves, without crushing or processing them at all. The tea on the right, I crushed up the dried leaves into smaller bits. This means more surface area was exposed and the water could extract more of the medicine.

In almost all cases with herbal preparations, you want to maximize the surface area of your herb so that the medicinal properties can extract most effectively.