Health Benefits of Herbal Teas

Drinking Herbal Teas, or herbal infusions as they are otherwise known, can increase your health, improve your fluid intake and perhaps minimise the number of supplements or pills you need to take on a daily basis! 

Here is a list of the topics I am going to cover when discussing Herbal Teas.......that way you can scroll down to what interests you the most!

• What are Herbal Teas?
• Herbal Teas are very hydrating.
• Herbal Teas are not dangerous!
• Infuse your Herbal Teas for as long as you can
• Herbal Teas will work better if they are blended together.
• What is the difference between a spice and a herb?
• Herbal Teas are caffeine free!
• A pleasant alternative to popping more pills...
• Herbal Teas contain lots of Vitamins, Minerals and Antioxidants
• Fresh Loose leaf herbal teas are MUCH better than teabags!
• Why it is hard to clinically trial Herbal teas

WHAT ARE HERBAL TEAS?

Herbal Teas, or Herbal Infusions, are made when you pour boiling water over either fresh or dried leaves, flowers, ground roots or seeds.   The addition of the hot water softens the plant material allowing water soluble health improving components, such as essential oils, to be released into the water. 

Infusions can only get to the active ingredients in tougher material like berries, some roots and bark if they are ground or broken before pouring water onto the herbs.  Some seeds are also like this as the outside pod protects the essential oils from air. 

Breaking, grinding or crushing them before pouring over boiling water will release these essential oils.

In my Healing Herbalist range I use many roots, berries and seeds in the blends. 

To get around the issue of the water not being able to get to the active components, we will freshly grind the seeds before they go into a formulation, or use crushed roots.  This means a more potent herbal tea.

HERBAL TEAS ARE HYDRATING!

Do you struggle to get enough fluid into you and find water boring and hard to drink?

Drinking herbal tea is the answer for you...........they are a great way to increase fluid intake while also enjoying the many health benefits they provide. 

Herbs contain many nutrients and antioxidants along with their specific health improving components. 

In order to get a proper therapeutic dose I recommend drinking at least 3 cups or more a day of our Healing Herbalist blends. 

This means you are already getting 3 cups of health packed water in your day!

Why not have it cold?

I often suggest that people make up their 3 daily cups of the Healing Herbalist Blends in one go, then cool it down, pour it into your water bottle and sip throughout the day.  Often the lovely flavours are better when cold and it is a great way to get your daily water intake up and drink the dosage of herbal teas needed for the therapeutic dose – especially if you don’t have access to a kettle during the day. 

HERBAL TEAS ARE NOT DANGEROUS!

As some of the more dangerous compounds in herbs, such as alkaloids, are not extracted in water, only in alcohol, herbal teas are very safe.  You would have to drink a lot of tea in one sitting to cause any problems. 

Like anything though everyone is different and always drink the teas within the dosage guidelines, as these wonderful plants do have a certain level of active ingredients.

INFUSE YOUR HERBAL TEAS FOR AS LONG AS YOU CAN!

It is important to give your herbs more time in the hot water than you would a normal tea in order to gain the full medicinal benefits.

Ideally you should leave them to infuse for 10 minutes – sometimes more.  This will ensure the maximum active ingredients are extracted.

Some people say their tea gets cold in this time.  If you use a mug or teapot with a lid and the water you initially poured over was hot enough – after 10mins the tea should be at the perfect drinking temperature.

HERBAL TEAS WORK BETTER WHEN BLENDED TOGETHER....

Well most of the time!  Obviously a great cup of Peppermint or Chamomile tea is going to be fantastic for you, but blending all these wondering herbs together is even better for you.  

And for a herbalist like me this is where the real fun of herbal teas comes in and this is what forms the basis for my Healing Herbalist Blends.

I spent a lot of time creating the blends for this range,making initial decisions on which herbs should go together to achieve a specific result , and then testing and tasting for flavour to make sure they TASTE GREAT!

There are many reasons why herbs should be blended together and there is a bit of an art to blending correctly.  Some herbs/ teas taste pretty bad by themselves, such as sage.  But if you blend these herbs with other flavourful herb such as licorice, fennel or peppermint for some examples, you can disguise the flavour. 

Blending herbs means you get a synergistic effect...

When we blend herbs together we get what us herbalists call a 'Synergistic effect' , so you will get even better results from drinking a blended herbal tea, than perhaps just a single herb. 

What does this mean?  Let me use my Tum-ease Blend to help explain…

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SPICE AND A HERB?

The Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of a herb is a seed-producing annual, biennial or perennial that does not develop persistent woody tissue but dies down at the end of a growing season. They are plants or plant parts that are valued for their medicinal, savory, or aromatic qualities.   Which is kind of what you would consider a spice to be too?

Historically, most plants categorized as herbs make it on the basis of some medicinal concoction derived from the root, leaf, bark, flower, or fruit. Again which also covers spices.

But there are some differences......

• Spices originated from the Asian tropics, the Americas, the Mediterranean countries and Europe. 
• Spices tend to be more aromatic and are often used to season or flavor foods.  You only need a small amount and they tend to be very pungent or fragrant. 
• In terms of a medictional use you usually need less
• Leaves, both fresh and dried, are normally considered herbs, while seeds, roots, fruits, flowers or bark are normally classified as spices.
• Herbs more frequently grow in temperate regions, while spices come from the tropics.
• Herbs are green and often have more subtle tastes while spices tend to be shades of brown, black or red, with dramatic pungent flavor.

When using them medicinally as a rule you don't need to use as much of a spice to get a therapeutic effect as their actions are often concentrated.

HERBAL TEAS ARE CAFFEINE FREE!

This is one of the most common questiond I get and the answer is most of them are! 

The exception is a plant called ‘Mate’ which is a south American herb that contains caffeine and is drunk for it’s energising properties.

So if you are trying to avoid caffeine then you can rest assured none of our Healing Herbalist Blends or Herbal Infusions (with the exception of mate) contain caffeine.

Also Rooibos or Red Bush is a caffeine free tea – and really is technically a herb. 

If you are interested in the caffeine levels of black or green teas then click here to go to our info page on Caffeine.

MORE PLEASANT THAN POPPING MORE PILLS.....

While supplements and herbal tablets definitely have their place, especially for their ability to get higher doses into people.

But in my experience many people just don’t want to have to take too many pills or nasty tasting liquid herbal formula, and therefore are delighted when you can offer them an alternative. 

At aaah! we can offer nice tasting herbals blends that will have a positive impact on the way people feel and their health. 

This was my focus when creating my Healing Herbalist range  - Flavour as well as therapeutic levels.

HERBAL TEAS ARE SO MUCH MORE THAN FLAVOURED WATER! 

They can make substantial benefits to your health.  

Although not all herbal teas are created equal ....

• They must be fresh, good quality loose leaf herbal teas
• Ideally follow the recommended dose for maximum benefits – in my case 3 cups a day to get the correct therapeutic level.
• They should be blended using herbs where the active ingredients are actually extracted in water
• The blends should be created carefully to ensure a therapeutic dose.

This will ensure you get great benefits from drinking a herbal tea.

HERBAL TEAS CONTAIN VITAMINS, MINERALS AND ANTIOXIDANTS TOO...

It just keeps on getting better!  Can you see why I love being a herbalist that makes herbal teas!!

As well as having medicinally active constituents, many herbs contain vitamins and minerals in a balanced and easily absorbable form. 

Herbs such as nettle, oats and chickweed are considered very nutritive because of their high vitamin and mineral content, but in fact all herbs contain some nutrients and some of these will end up in your cup and you will benefit from these. 

Of course you aren’t going to get as much as you would from a supplement but it means drinking herbal teas is a great addition to our modern, often nutrient deficient diet.  

And because they are natural forms of minerals and vitamins they are easily absorbed and assimilated in our bodies.

LOOSE LEAF HERBAL TEAS ARE FAR SUPERIOR TO TEABAGS

Normally with tea I am of the opinion that all tea is good tea.  There are some great brands of teabags in NZ that where the companies use good quality tea and have nice flavours.

But when it comes to Herbal Tea it is a completely different story.  I have to say drinking herbal tea from teabags might encourage you to drink more water but they really do little else. 

Sorry......I know they seem less fussy and messy but I have good reasons to say this:-

• The amount of herb in the tea bag is far too low to have any therapeutic effect. 
• The leaves have normally been ground to a powder and thus extremely exposed to oxygen, which destroys many of the beneficial effects.
• These cut herbs are also often lower quality and sit around on shelves thus further reducing quality and taste.

The comparison between the flavours of a bitter teabag of Chamomile vs the lovely aroma and taste of freshly dried whole Chamomile flowers is remarkable. 

Try it yourself to see the difference!

HERBAL TEAS ARE DIFFICULT TO CLINICALLY TRIAL

Not impossible but nature kind of doesn't fit in with the science mold unfotunately.

Which is kind of a shame really as there is nothing a herbalist like me loves more than a good well designed clinical trial to back up what we already know about herbs!

This doesn’t mean there aren’t studies out there on herbal teas, or that we shouldn’t do studies on them.  It means that it is difficult to study herbal teas to fit in with the recognised double blind style of accepted studies with consistent ingredients.

It’s the consistency that becomes a problem.  Let me try to explain…

Every plant is made up of many active constituents, some of which we are able to identify and connect with certain actions.  For example the volatile oils in the family that contains fennel have an anti-spasmodic and calming effect which helps digestion. 

Most plants have many many active ingredients, some we know what they do and some we have yet to discover.

This is the key to where modern pharmaceutical thinking and herbal medicine differs!  Pharmaceutical drugs isolate a single component and this is what is clinically trialed.  

The main issue for clinical trialing of herbal teas and other herbal medicines is the changing of the active components in a plant from week to week, season to season – this again cannot be controlled for a clinically sound trial.  For example:-

• The Chamomile we pick one week is unlikely to contain the same levels of active ingredients it did the week before.
• The plant next to it is likely to have different levels of actives to the plant next to it.
• The Chamomile will be completely different the following year, even if you pick on the same day, due to different weather or soil conditions etc during the year.

So what is happening now in the world of herbal research, is that the ingredient that is thought to have the main action in a herb, is isolated and studied by itself. 

This works, but does have limitations when you go back to the main herbalist principle of the synergies of all the components working together to get the full benefit from the plants.

So ideally what we do as herbalists is endeavour to understand the actions and some of the constituents of herbs, and combine with this the centuries of traditional knowledge.  So while you don’t always need clinical trials to justify a herbs actions, they are good to have to give some scientific grounding to historical uses.

OTHER INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT HERBAL TEAS....

What parts of the plants are used in Herbal Teas?

All parts can be used and the part that is used depends on where the highest concentrations of the active ingredients are found.

Leaves - Are generally collected as the plant comes into flower.  Large leaves of plants are dried individually, smaller leaves are harvested and dried while still on the stem.  Dandelion leaves are an example

Flowers - Preferably should be collected at midday when fully open, but before they begin to close or fade.  Some flowers with large petals are picked singly (such as calendula) while others are picked as the whole flower (such as chamomile).

Aerial parts - This is the whole plant above ground, and are best gathered with the flowers or buds are present on the plant.  Herbs where the aerial parts are used are Rosemary, Lemon balm and Peppermint.

Fruits - Such as the berries of plants are collected when they are just ripe.  If they are overripe they are difficult to dry.  Chaste berries, or Juniper berries are examples of some herbal fruits.

Seeds - Are usually picked as the whole seed head, still on the stalk, when most of the seeds are just ripe.  Example of a seed is Fennel or aniseed.

Bark - Is the outer covering of the branches or inner bark such as slippery elm.  Usually collected in autumn or early spring, before the sap rises, so that damage to the plant is minimised.    Cinnamon is another example of bark.

Roots, Rhizome and Bulbs - Are collected when the foliage dries back.  The time of the year is dependant on the plant.  Examples of roots are Ginger or Licorice.

Parts Used

It is important to know what part is used as you may use the wrong part and not get the desired effect you want.  Often it is the part of the plant that causes much confusion in clinical trials. 

Echinacea is one of these – is it the leaves, the whole plant or the root that really has the action on the immune system?  Some trials on Echinacea have actually used the wrong species - no wonder they didn't get the right result!

In other examples there are different used for different parts of the plant, like Dandelion leaves are a great diuretic, dandelion root is a fantastic liver tonic.

Actions of Herbs

The action of a herb is how it works in the body to provoke a response.  For example tannins, found in plants such as Eyebright, Nettle and Raspberry have an astringent action.  This means they cause the tissues to contract and this reduces secretions and discharges.

So therefore knowing a herb has tannins in it and is therefore an astringent, indicates to us what we would use it for.  Perhaps to stop excessive bleeding, to stop diarrhoea or to dry up sinuses – it depends on the herb as to where the focus of the astringency will be.

Often a herbs actions will combine so it becomes known to have an effect on a particular part of the body.    For example Eyebright is astringent, but it also has other actions that make it particularly useful for the upper respiratory tract.