Tea As Medicine

I bought a local food package over the holidays as a gift for my partner and recently found this tea laying around. Made by an Oakland company, Sky Tea, it was Tangerine-Ginger. Recently, after carting it around and never giving it much thought, I took it out and read the ingredients:

• Hibiscus
• Tangerine Rind
• Schizandra berry
• Dried ginger 

Three of the four ingredients are commonly used Chinese Herbs! I love having food as medicine, herbal teas to me now usually mean some odd tasting powdered herbs mixed with hot water or long boiled raw chinese herbs to form a strong tasting tea. But this is a tea that is marketed to taste good, not for medicinal purposes, those are just a bonus.

If you are interested in the herbal details, I break it down after the photo. This is the tea covered in hot water, and secondly backlit by the sun. Look at that amazing magenta color that hibscus gives, beautiful!

 

Ok, so if you are still reading, I want to talk about the medicinal herbs included in this tea and what they do.

Hibiscus - is not in the Materia Medica that we use, but has lots of modern research of health benefits, the most common being that it reduces inflammation

Tangerine Rind aka 'Chen Pi' or Citri reticulatae Pericarpium - This type of tangerine peel is aged and known for "regulating qi". This is a commonly used herb to balance out a formula that can be strengthening but doesn't have enough movement qualities. Tangerine peel also has great effects not just on moving but on drying dampness and phlegm. Aka, this is a great hangover cure! Some symptoms it can help are: 

• feeling of fullness in your upper abdomen and chest
• indigestion
• vomiting
• hiccups
• belching
• flatulence
• poor appetite
• diarrhea
• loose stools
• productive cough

Schizandra Berry aka 'Wu Wei Zi' or Schisandrae Fructus - this is at type of Astringent Herb. These herbs help pull qi and or fluids together when things are dispersing too much. It is also known to be very sour, but the translation is called "five flavors seed". The herb can help:

• chronic cough/wheeze/asthma
• diarrhea, spermatorrhea, nocturnal emission, leukorrhea, frequen urination, enuresis
• spontaneous sweat, night sweat
• thirst
• diabetes
• palpitations
• insomnia
• irritability

Dried Ginger Root aka 'Gan Jiang' or Zingiberis Rhizoma - this is a type of warming herb. It can be great for lots of digestive issues that have a Chinese Medical diagonsis that is 'cold' and other issues as well.

• chronic diarrhea
• vomit
• pain in upper abdomen
• cold feeling in abdomen
• low back pain
• spontaneous sweating
• cold sweat
• cold extremeties
• cough
• dyspnea
• frothy sputum