Lemongrass Tea Ceremony for Money: A Spiritual Ritual Guide
If you've been working on money magic and want a practice that's grounded, repeatable, and genuinely satisfying to perform, a lemongrass tea ceremony for money is one of the most elegant tools you can add to your practice. Lemongrass isn't a trendy substitute for something more dramatic — it has a specific set of magical correspondences that make it a natural fit for prosperity work, and brewing it into tea lets you do something that burning, carrying, or placing it never quite achieves: you take the herb's energy directly into your body. This guide covers everything from why lemongrass works for money magic, through preparing your space and tools, to the moment you close the ritual and move forward with your intention set.
Why Lemongrass Is Suited to a Money Tea Ceremony
Lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) sits under the rulership of Mercury and the element of Air. Mercury governs commerce, communication, transactions, and the movement of resources — it's the planet of exchange, which makes it directly relevant to money not as static wealth, but as something that flows, circulates, and responds to opportunity. When you're working to attract money, you're not just trying to manifest a lump sum; you're opening yourself to the channels through which abundance moves. Lemongrass, as a Mercurial herb, is built for exactly that kind of work. You can read a full breakdown of its broader magical profile in the Lemongrass in Magic: Correspondences, Uses & Safety article.
Beyond planetary correspondence, lemongrass has a documented folk history across Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and parts of South America as a prosperity herb. In several Caribbean folk magic traditions, lemongrass is used in floor washes and baths specifically to draw money into the home and cleanse the space of energetic blockages that prevent abundance from accumulating. This isn't metaphor — practitioners in these traditions understood that stuck, stagnant energy and financial stagnation tend to travel together. Lemongrass's sharp, citrus-forward aromatic profile reinforces this conceptually: its scent is clarifying and cutting, the olfactory equivalent of opening a window in a closed room. It moves what's stuck.
The lemon-citrus brightness of lemongrass also connects it to the broader citrus family's magical resonance with clarity, mental sharpness, and the removal of obstacles — qualities associated in many traditions with lemon and similar sun-adjacent plants. But lemongrass adds its own warmth and grounding through the plant's grass-and-earth base note, which keeps the energy from scattering. That combination — upward, opening citrus energy rooted in something earthy — is particularly good for money work, which requires both receptivity to new channels and the groundedness to actually receive and hold what comes.
Now here's why tea, specifically, matters. When you burn lemongrass or carry it in a sachet, the herb acts on your space or your energetic field from the outside. When you brew it and drink it, you're internalizing the correspondence. The magic doesn't just surround you — it becomes part of your body's chemistry and your immediate sensory experience for the duration of the ceremony. This is embodied magic: you're not just signaling your intention to the universe, you're physically participating in it. Every sip becomes an act of alignment. For money magic, which often has a psychological dimension — self-worth, belief in your own capacity to receive — this kind of internal working carries a depth that external applications can't fully replicate.
Preparing for Your Lemongrass Tea Ceremony
Timing matters in money magic, and lemongrass ceremony benefits from thoughtful scheduling. The most supportive timing is during a waxing moon — the phase between new moon and full moon when lunar energy is building toward fullness, which corresponds symbolically to growth, increase, and accumulation. If you can be more specific, Wednesday is Mercury's day of the week, which reinforces the planetary correspondence of the herb itself. Morning is traditionally associated with beginnings, fresh starts, and the energy of increase, so a Wednesday morning during a waxing moon is an ideal window — though the most important thing is consistency and genuine intention, not waiting for perfect conditions.
Your space should feel intentional, not cluttered. You don't need an elaborate altar — a clean surface, some privacy, and a few minutes without interruption will do. Clear the area where you'll sit and brew, and if you want to set a light energetic boundary around the space, a moment of quiet breath and a clear mental declaration of purpose is enough. This is your working space for the duration of the ceremony, and treating it as such shifts your mental state into the focused, receptive mode that makes the magic effective.
Two auxiliary tools will significantly reinforce your working:
- Green candle: Green is the primary color correspondence for money, abundance, and financial growth — lighting one during your ceremony creates a visual anchor for your intention and signals to your subconscious that this is prosperity work.
- Citrine: A stone long associated with abundance, confidence, and the activation of personal will toward financial goals — place it near your cup or hold it during the ceremony to reinforce the money correspondence and keep your focus sharp.
Place your green candle where you can see it comfortably while you sit with your tea. Set citrine next to your cup, or hold it in your non-dominant hand while you drink. These aren't decoration — they're focusing tools that keep your mind anchored to the specific intent of the working.
A brief safety note: lemongrass tea is generally well-tolerated, but if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, taking blood pressure medications, or have known grass allergies, check with a doctor or herbalist before drinking it. This guide does not provide medical or dosage advice — if any of those categories apply to you, get qualified guidance first.
Brewing Lemongrass With Intention
The brewing process is where your ceremony actually begins. Don't wait until the cup is in your hands to start being intentional — the moment you bring out your lemongrass is the moment the ritual opens. Whether you're using fresh lemongrass stalks, dried cut herb, or a quality lemongrass tea blend, take a moment to hold the herb in your hands before you start. Feel its texture, smell it. Let the sharp, bright, citrus-grass scent land in your awareness. This is your opening — the sensory signal to your nervous system and your will that something purposeful is happening.
For practical brewing: if you're using fresh lemongrass, bruise two or three stalks (roughly the bottom six inches of the stalk where the flavor concentrates) by pressing them firmly with the back of a spoon or bending them. Place them in your pot or infuser. If you're using dried lemongrass, one to two teaspoons per cup is standard. Heat your water to just below boiling — around 90 to 95°C (195 to 200°F) — rather than a full rolling boil, which can flatten the aromatics and make the brew taste harsh. A gentle, bright steep preserves the herb's lifting citrus notes, which are precisely the sensory qualities you want active during money work.
While the water heats, hold your intention clearly. Not as a vague wish, but as something specific and present-tense: money flows to me easily and consistently, or I am open to receiving abundance through every available channel. The phrasing matters less than the clarity and the feeling behind it. Let yourself actually feel what it would mean for this to be true. This is the moment where your will is doing the real work — the herb and the ritual structure are amplifying and directing that will, but they don't replace it.
Pour the hot water over your lemongrass and allow it to steep for five to seven minutes. As the herb steeps, watch the color shift and the steam rise. Keep your intention active — you don't need to be rigid or tense about it, but stay present. Some practitioners like to speak quietly to the tea as it brews, stating their intention aloud over the cup. If that feels right to you, do it. Something simple works well: name what you're calling in. "This tea carries my intention toward money, abundance, and open channels. As I drink it, I align myself with prosperity." Your words don't need to be poetic — they need to be honest and specific.
Before you remove the herb and sit down to drink, take one more breath over the cup. The steam carrying lemongrass's aromatic compounds will reach you first — let that scent be its own small act of reception. Your body is already beginning to receive before the first sip.
Drinking and Closing the Ceremony
Sit down with your tea deliberately. Don't drink it standing at the counter or while scrolling. This is a ceremony, which means it deserves a pause in your normal rhythm. Set your citrine nearby or hold it. If your green candle is lit, let it be in your line of sight. Take the first sip slowly, with your full attention on what you're doing and why. The temperature, the flavor, the slight grassy brightness with its citrus edge — all of it is sensory feedback that you're present in this working.
As you drink, alternate between holding your intention clearly and simply being present with the experience. You don't need to white-knuckle your focus for every sip. Let the intention settle and breathe. Think about what financial abundance actually looks like in your specific life — not a generic pile of money, but what it enables: the bill paid without stress, the investment made, the opportunity taken. The more concrete your mental imagery, the more directed your will becomes. This is where lemongrass's Mercury energy does its best work — in sharp, specific, clear-channel thinking about what you want and how it could arrive.
When you've finished the tea, sit with the empty cup for a moment. This is the transition point between the active working and the closing. Take a breath and let yourself feel settled and complete — not grasping, not anxious, but genuinely expectant in a calm way. You've done the work. Now you release it.
To close the ceremony, you have a few options depending on your practice style. Grounding is important after any intentional working — press your feet flat on the floor, take a few slow breaths, and feel yourself fully back in ordinary awareness. If you kept a green candle burning, you can snuff it (don't blow it out, which is traditionally considered to disperse the intention) and save it to burn again in future sessions. Journaling immediately after is genuinely useful: write down your intention as you stated it, any impressions or images that arose during the ceremony, and anything that already feels like it's shifting. This creates a record and reinforces the working through the act of naming it.
For disposal of the spent herb: pour the used lemongrass (or rinse it from your infuser) outside near the base of a healthy plant or tree, or into your garden soil. Returning it to the earth is a respectful close that also symbolically seeds your intention outward. Alternatively, you can simply compost it — the point is that you're not discarding it thoughtlessly, but completing the cycle with intention. Avoid flushing it down the drain, which many practitioners associate with washing away what you've built.
Let Lemongrass Be Your Recurring Money Practice
What you've built here isn't a one-time working — it's a reusable ritual framework you can return to anytime you need to actively cultivate money in your life. The mechanism is specific and worth remembering: lemongrass works for money because Mercury governs the flow and movement of resources, and Mercury-ruled herbs excel at opening channels, clearing stagnation, and sharpening the mental clarity you need to actually recognize and act on opportunity. This ceremony doesn't just ask the universe for money — it aligns your will, your body, and your focused intention with the energetic qualities that support financial abundance. That's a meaningful difference.
The more you repeat this ceremony, the more the ritual structure itself becomes a powerful cue for your mind. Your nervous system will begin to recognize the scent of lemongrass steeping, the sight of the green candle, and the act of sitting with intentional stillness as signals that shift you into a state of focused, receptive, prosperity-oriented thinking. Over time, the practice deepens. The first ceremony opens the channel; the tenth one has years of accumulated will behind it.
If this framework resonates with you, it's worth exploring how other prosperity herbs work within it. The Cinnamon Tea Ceremony for Money brings a solar, fire-driven energy to abundance work — faster and more activating in character, built around cinnamon's long history as a wealth-drawing herb. The Basil Tea Ceremony for Money offers a different angle again, working with basil's deep roots in prosperity folk magic across Mediterranean and South Asian traditions. Each herb opens the channel in its own way — trying more than one over time gives you a richer, more layered practice.
For a broader map of herbs and intentions across the full tea ceremony framework, the Spiritual Tea Ceremonies: A Complete Guide by Intent is the place to go next. It gives you a full foundation for building a tea ceremony practice across different areas of your life, not just money.
You already have what it takes to do this work. The herb, the water, the cup, and above all your focused will — that's the whole kit. Everything else is refinement. Brew the tea, sit with your intention, and let lemongrass do what it's been doing for centuries: clearing the path and opening the flow.