Bouquet Garni

The term "bouquet garni" typically refers to a specific mix of herbs--a few bay leaves, a parsley sprig, and a thyme sprig--that you have tied in cheesecloth to facilitate your extracting them from a stew or soup before serving. Which is to say, you want the flavor of the herbs, but you don't want to eat them.

We rarely have cheesecloth sitting at the ready and use a metal tea ball instead.

You can, of course, use this technique with other herbs. Rosemary, savory, sage, basil, celery leaves, chervil, and tarragon are among the ones you might find references to.