Herbal Tea

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Welcome to Herbal Tea Source! Feel free to browse our exhaustive list of teas, our collection of articles about brewing, history, and more, or our reviews of herbal teas and herbal tea related products. Below you will find our most recently added articles. For more information, check out herbal tea on Wikipedia.

Ginseng: The Immune System Booster

Added on May 07, 2013

Ginseng is one of the most commonly taken forms of herbal remedies throughout the world. In fact, according to Drugs.com, it’s estimated that more than 7 million are currently taking Ginseng in the United States alone. Both Asian ginseng and American ginseng are referred to as “ginseng”. Both of these forms of ginseng are actively used around the globe to help boost immune systems and overall well-being. Additionally, it’s well understood that ginseng has a positive effect on improving overall physical and mental performance on a daily basis. Clinical trials and animal studies have shown that ginseng can actively help to prevent and reduce the severity of certain illnesses - although the main beneficial factor of it is immune system boosting.

Ginseng has been used for decades for boosting energy and tackling severe diseases, but it’s only until recently that it’s immune system boosting properties have been identified. Ginseng received a tremendous reputation boost after a Canadian trial announced the results of their tests. They showed that Ginseng not only contained properties that could tackle diseases and promote well being, but also boost the immune system to prevent against infections and diseases being developed. Since then, several more clinical trials have taken place and each one has come to the same conclusion. Ginseng, when taken over a period of time, can actively help patients boost their immune systems effectively. Additionally, when patients did catch an infection, such as a cold, Ginseng actively helped in reducing the severity of the symptoms, and helped patients to overcome the infection quicker than usual.

It’s not known what properties within Ginseng help to boost the immune system, but it’s well understood that it does. Ginseng is completely safe to take and there are no known side-effects with taking it regularly. In fact, it’s completely...
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Lemongrass

Added on October 01, 2012

About

Lemongrass (Cymbopogon) is a genus of grasses which valued for their slightly acidic but unique flavor. An essential ingredient in Southeastern Asian cuisine, Lemongrass also makes a great addition to nearly any tea.

Brewing

Brewing with Lemongrass is not difficult. If you happen to have whole lemongrass, make sure to peel off the outer green leaves, as they will make a bitter tea. Then simply slice the grass and place in the tea.

Lemongrass is easy to work with and can be added to any tea you like, as long as it is not steeped for too long. For a straight lemongrass tea, add to boiling water and steep for 3 to 5 minutes.

Flavor

Lemongrass is noted for its lemony (duh) flavor. It is used extensively in Thai cooking for this purpose, but its citrus notes are a great addition to any tea. It is common to add sweetener to balance out the slightly acidic nature of the lemongrass, but it is also easy to appreciate the flavor on its own.

History

Lemongrass is a great herbal tea, but did you know that it’s been used for centuries as an antiseptic? In fact, lemongrass oil was applied to manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves in South and South East Asia.

Recipes

Because of its versatile flavor, lemongrass makes a great addition to nearly any tea.

For a stomach soothing tea, try mixing lemongrass with peppermint and ginger.

For a great sleep aid, try mixing lemongrass in peppermint and chamomile.

In Kerala, India, Lemongrass is an important ingredient in “chukku kappi”, “dry ginger tea”, a great home remedy for cold symptoms.

Growing

Lemongrass is a great addition to any herbal tea garden. It grows readily in...
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Adagio IngenuiTEA Review

Added on September 26, 2012

There are lots of different ways to strain tea, from the ubiquitous teabag to the filtered metal bombilla straw. But not many of them meet the following criteria:

1. Simple and lightweight. While devices like the Breville One-Touch Tea Maker are nifty, you can’t really take them anywhere and use them on the go.

2. Reusable. Ideally, you should only have to buy the strainer once every few years if at all.

3. Can’t be messy. If you wanted a difficult to clean mess, you could just throw all the leaves in the tea and steep it loose.

4. Inexpensive. When you’re just getting into teas, you don’t want to drop hundreds of dollars on a fancy all in one brewer.

5. Safe. You don’t want plastic or paper floating around in your tea.

That’s where the Adagio IngenuiTEAcomes in. The Adagio IngenuiTEA is an ingenious (hmm) device for steeping tea.

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Kava Quality

Added on September 25, 2012

Kava is a great addition to any herbal tea drinker’s cupboard. It is a wonderful remedy for anxiety and sleep issues. But many people try kava and get nothing more than peppery burps out of the experience. Why is this?

Unfortunately, there is a lot of low quality Kava on the market. In the Pacific Island Kava culture, only the root of the Kava plant is consumed, but many suppliers will grind up every part of the Kava plant.

In fact, in order for Kava to be effective, the root of the plant should be consumed as fresh as possible. Ideally, we would all have fresh Kava root plucked straight out of the ground, but as most Kava is grown on Pacific islands, this is an impossibility for those of us living in continental countries. The next best thing is to obtain high quality dried roots.

The Kava extract capsules you will find on pharmacy shelves are unfortunately nearly worthless. They are not purely from the roots and are often old and low quality. In some cases it is not even clear whether they are really Kava. We have yet to encounter a normal retail pill or tincture form of Kava that works. There are a precious few high quality Kava pastes and extracts, but they should be purchased from the same suppliers who sell fresh roots.

It is with this in mind that we have been researching places to source high quality kava. There is a vibrant kava community on the internet, and we have collected from reading their insights a couple businesses that are considered to be affordable and high-quality. Unfortunately, some of the sellers who pop up immediately when searching for kava are considered to be very low quality, and it would behoove you to do your...
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Breville One-Touch Tea Maker Review

Added on September 21, 2012

The Breville One-Touch Tea Maker is a unique programmable device that handles the tea brewing process from start to finish. You simply enter the temperature and steeping time and press the button (I wonder where they got the name from!)

The first thing that enters your mind when unboxing the tea maker is the quality of the construction. It has a very slick brushed aluminum base. The actual kettle is made of thick glass by Schott, and we wouldn’t be surprised if it was the most expensive part of the tea maker. It’s a very impressive streamlined design.

But how does the actual functionality hold up? The device comes with 5 temperature presets for green, black, white, oolong, and herbal tea. It has 3 time presets: strong, medium, and mild. Once you’ve programmed the temperature and time, you load the basket and press the button. Watching the tea brew is actually surprisingly exciting the first few times due to the transparent sides of the glass. Little streams of water and bubbles dance around as the water heats up, and with some teas you can actually see the tea seeping out into the water. The thick glass keeps the tea warm for an impressive amount of time.

The size is about right – the tea maker makes a pretty big pot of tea. We’ve never tried making say, a single cup; the steeper might not go down far enough to really work for small amounts.

Once the initial infatuation with this process wears off though, the question enters your mind, “is this actually worth purchasing?” We hate to answer your question with a series of questions, but here they are: Do you brew tea on a daily basis? Are you sick of messing with timers and thermometers? Then this device...
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