Tea is the most consumed beverage next to water and is wonderful to have, and not only on a chilly night, or when you are stressed, and need to relax. Herbal teas are the best option for consuming herbs and gaining the many benefits they have to offer. It consists of polyphenols which is a family of antioxidants that include catechins, and flavoniodes.
Using different types of tea leaves for brewing herbal tea remedies, can come in various tastes and blends, however the most important thing to remember is that you can use it's healing properties to improve your health. Herbal teas have been around for many thousands of years.
Below you will find a list of my favourites teas. I am a big tea drinker, and truly believe, that tea can make your body & soul feel rejuvenated, whether it is after a hard days work, a stressful situation, or a regular evening watching television. Also try any of these teas, cold on ice, with a splash of lemon, or a mint leaf. Remember to always buy good quality tea preferably organic.
Chamomile tea - The "nighty-night"tea
Benefits:
- Calming/Non-caffeinated
- Mild muscle relaxant (menstural cramps, toothache, headache)
- Helps relieve anxiety, stress and even depression
- Cures cough/bronchitis/fever/inflammation of the skin
- Heals bug bites/stings and burns
- Prevents and improves acne
- Relieves insomnia
- Settles stomach aiding to fight ulcers
Some people believe in lighting their natural hair colour with chamomile.
- Brew the tea
- Put it in a spray bottle a
- Apply to hair before you go out in the sun.
You will have lighter streaks and smoother hair.
Dandelion tea
Benefits:
- Improves liver function
- Removes gall stones
- Reducing inflammation of the bile duct
- Natural diuretic
- Boost immune system/fights off bacteria & viruses
- Promotes weight loss
- Improves blood circulation
- Reduces cholesterol
- Relieves inflammation related to rheumatism & arthritis
- Alleviates skin complications
Dandelion tea has a strong, intense and bitter taste and quite popular with coffee drinkers. It can be made quite easily by anyone, if they prefer they can already buy it ready to go and enjoy. The leaves contain several vitamins and minerals that help promote well-being. Dandelion leaves contains beta-carotene, which is important for improving a person's ability to see in dim light. The leaves contain iron, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium and zinc, as well as vitamins B-1, B-2, B-5, B-6, B-12, C, D, E, and P.
Ginger Tea is famous for its medicinal properties.
Benefits:
- Stimulates digestion - giving the body energy
- Boosts circulation, respiration and nervous system function.
- Treats colds and fevers
- Remedies motion sickness, nausea and morning sickness
- An anti-inflammatory and destroys many intestinal parasites
- Normalizes blood pressure
- Helps support the liver
- Eases congestion in the throat and lungs
- Alleviate menstrual discomfort
Serving Suggestion:
Boil one tablespoon of grated fresh ginger in 3 cups of water. Simmer the ginger root for 20 minutes. While it's simmering, inhale the steam. This inhalation helps to relieve congestion and dilates constricted bronchial tubes. Drink your ginger tea alone, with brown sugar or even honey. It is better absorbed when you drink it on an empty stomach. For colds and sore throats do it 3x a day.
Green Tea has the most amazing benefits a person can drink, and that is because it is rich in catechin polyphenols especially epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is a powerful anti-oxidant that inhibits the growth of cancer cells, and kills cancer cells without harming healthy tissue.
Other Benefits:
- Helps lower LDL cholesterol levels
- Inhibites the abnormal formation of blood clots
- Helps with rheumatoid arthritis & cardiovascular disease
- Fights infections and makes the immune system stronger
- Helps prevent tooth decay by killing bacteria
- Aides in weight loss
- Burns fat faster
- Speeds up the metabolism
- Lower blood sugar levels
- Slows the aging process
Green tea is produced from unfermented leaves that are freshly picked and are steamed, rolled, dried and fired to inactivate the enzymes. It contains less caffeine than coffee, and is enjoyed by many people.
Nettle Tea is a very beneficial herb grown in this world. Native to Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and North America, nettle is perennial in nature and is recognized for many benefits especially when consumed in the form of tea. Nettle tea has been found to be quite rich in vitamins, such as calcium, iron, folic acid, potassium, magnesium, carotene, and zinc.
Benefits:
- Eases cramps & muscles spasms.
- Increases fertility in both men and women.
- Aids the formation and coagulation of blood cells.
- Treats arthritis, rheumatism and benign prostate.
- Is beneficial for people suffering from hair loss.
- Aids the treatment of respiratory and urinary problems.
- Helps for women who suffer from excessive menstrual bleeding or PMS symptoms. Also reduces water retention and treat anemia.
- Helps to decrease the action of DHT, a testosterone that is regarded as the culprit behind prostate enlargement.
- Relieves allergies, coughs, urinary tract infections.
- Cures headaches.
- Stimulates the kidneys to excrete more water, thus helping the body get rid of toxins and metabolic wastes and serving as a valuable blood purifier.
- Help cleanse out the entire intestinal tract.
- Treats dysentery, diarrhea, hemorrhoids and inflammation of the kidneys.
- Stops excessive bleeding that may follow childbirth.
- Restores women's energy after childbirth and can also stimulate milk production.
Oolong Tea (Wu Yi tea” or “Wu Long tea) is widely consumed in the Far East and comes from the camellia sinensis plant.
Benefits:
- Increases metabolism and energy
- Blocks fat absorption
- Removes excess water weight from the body
- Boosts the immune system
- Fights plaque and tooth decay
- Prevents aging, wrinkles and spots
- Enhances focus and mental function
- Fights cancerous cells and diseases
Many of the health benefits of oolong tea are similar to those of green tea.
Pu'erh Tea This is the perfect tea after a heavy meal. Considered the slimming tea for it's help with digestion.
Benefits:
- Reduces cholesterol
- Aids in digestion (particularly of fatty foods)
- Helps clean the intestines and stomach
- Assists with weight loss.
The brewed tea is darkly red, and has a bold, earthy taste. Pu-erh is usually purchased in a compressed state rather than loose leaves. It is made from wild old tea trees and is more potent, containing strong Qi (translated as "life energy" or "life force") that boosts the blood flow and helps the body's circulation. It aids the removal of toxins and can cure minor aches and pains.
Red Clover Tea also known as Trifolium pratense is a blood purifying plant that is beneficial for the skin, lungs, throat and salivary glands. It contains an isoflavone, biochanin, that exhibits anti cancer abilities.
Benefits:
- Supports all the organs of elimination
- Aids in the removal and expelling of phlegm from the lungs
- Cleanses and clears toxins
- Nourishes and moves the blood
- Stimulates the lymphatic system
- Reduces swelling and inflamamtion
- Reduces respiratory irritation
- Promotes tissue repair
- Fertility booster for men and women
Treats:
- athlet's foot
- arthritic pain
- cancers
- eczema
- gout
- burns/wounds
- tumors
- insect bites
- swelling
- psoriasis
- sore throat
- hot flashes, breast pain and PMS
Red Raspberry Leaf Tea is a pale green leaf produced by the Raspberry plant. The use of Red Raspberry Leaves dates back to ancient Greeks and Romans and has a rich history of being used to treat a wide various ailments.
Benefits:
- Treats diarrhea (Drink 6 cups a day to treat diarrhea)
- Regulates menstrual
periods and decreases heavy periods (Drink 2-3 cups per day. After 2-3
months you should obtain a regular cycle.)
- Treats
Acne. (use as an astringent)
- Soothes mouth and throat irritations (use as mouthwash)
- Increases fertility in both men and women (drink for a few months while trying to conceive).
- Prevents miscarriage and postpartum hemorrhage by helping to tone the uterus thus creating a relaxed (atonic) uterus.
- Eases morning sickness
- Reduces
pain during labor and after birth
- Assists in the production of plentiful breast milk
- Can help
make labor faster (allow the uterus to work more efficiently)
- Treats the common cold or flu
- Aids women’s immune system during pregancy
- Facilitates healthy skin and
bone development for the baby.
- Promotes better
circulation during pregnancy.
Treats:
- the flu
- gum disease
- rubella
- upset stomach/diarrhea/vomiting
- hangover
- fevers
- menstrual problems
- inflammation
The most popular use of Red Raspberry leaves is for pregnancy*.
It is a uterine tonic used by Native Americans for thousands of years. It tones your uterus by helping to "focus" your Braxton Hicks contractions. Think of its job as helping your uterus do more effective exercising while you are pregnant. It does not "cause" contractions and can be safely used throughout pregnancy. Many women safely use it from the moment they learn they are pregnant at six weeks until months after delivery. (It helps to tone the uterus after delivery as well, shrinking it back to size more quickly and reducing bleeding.)
*Some
midwives and doctors recommend not using this tea during the first
trimester or limiting yourself to one cup per day. However, others state
different and say to drink throughout your whole pregnancy. However, you
are responsible for your own health and if you are concerned seek
advice from your caregiver to decide.
Rooibos Tea is a pleasant red tea, which has a sweet yet bitter taste. It has high levels of antioxidants such as aspalathin and notofagin. It does not contain caffeine and has low tannin levels compared to black tea or green tea leaves.
Benefits:
- Assists with nervous tension, allergies and digestive problems
- Promotes a healthy skin and a healthy nervous system.
- Alleviates infantile colic, allergies, asthma and dermatological problems
- Safe for nursing mothers, pregnant woman and infants to drink.
Yerba Mate Tea is not technically tea, it is a traditional medicinal tea in a class of its own. It is brewed from the leaves and small twigs of the tree Ilex paraguarensis. Mate has a slightly bitter edge to it, with an intense earthy, but refreshing taste.
Traditionally, this medicinal tea is drunk out of a small, round pot called a mate gourd. The mate is made by soaking the ground plant in cold water, and then adding hot water. The infusion is sipped through a wooden or metal filtered straw, called a bombilla. Yerba mate can also be purchased in bag form like conventional teas.
Benefits:
- Energizing drink. It has the same stimulatory effects as coffee
- Increases mental clarity and physical stamina
- Calms asthma by opening respiratory pathways, and increasing blood circulation.
- Effective in weightloss
- Controls appetite
- Relieves symtoms of arthritis
- Stimulates digestive system
Mate however provides xanthine alkaloids in addition to caffeine, which seem to be the reason that yerba mate drinkers do not experience the same negative side effects that coffee brings, although the caffeine content of yerba mate is comparable to a cup of coffee.
This medicinal tea also provides antioxidants - more so than a cup of green tea. It is rich in vitamins C and E which are the primary free-radical fighting nutrients.
Yerba mate the most potent cancer fighting phytochemcials; quercitin, rutin, ursolic acid, and tannins, which all have anti tumor or anticancer properties.
