About every ten days I fill my largest stainless steel soup pot with water, add approx. 1/2 cup each of dried hawthorn leaves and flowers, powdered hawthorn fruit (Crataegus laevigata) and Jamaican Cranberry (Hibiscus sabdariffa) and slowly bring it up to a gentle boil, then let it cool overnight. Next day I decant it into fruit juice bottle.....I don't strain as 99% of the herbs sink to the bottom of the pot. I add no sweetener as it tastes mild and tart, but I can imagine someone adding honey and lemon to serve over ice a few times a day...I just take a gulp out of the bottle a few times daily. Both herbs have been used for centuries to control high blood pressure (mine is not terrible, just a little high) and even to this day in Europe the hawthorn is used to control irregular heart beat. I've had irregular heartbeat since my thirties, but my blood pressure monitor has a built in indicator for irregular heartbeat and shows I've eliminated 2/3s of mine. I'm sharing this as I know quite a few people with these two issues, and often have bad side effects from artificial drugs, especially the statins that often attack leg muscles, which they did to my Dad and now is doing to my new neighbor Paul whose quads are now permanently cramped. I'm not a doctor but do like sharing health tips that work for me. I get the hawthorn on-line cheap, just $9 a pound, and Mary Mac got me the hibiscus cheap at SANWA Market in east Tampa...next time someone shops for me there I'll ask them to get me the BIG bag.