What's Your Best Tea Remedy For A Cold?
It’s coming.
I can feel it. Mildly sore throat for about a week. Totally exhausted the past two days without any explanation. And now… the drippy sinuses. I’ve been in denial the past couple days but once you find yourself clearing a kind of warm, musty thickness from your throat, it’s serious business. Defcon 2. Red alert. Shields up and brace for a whole load of suck.
What’s your best/favorite tea based cold remedy?
Anything with ginger in it help but i don’t know a specific tea who really help other than being comforting so I’m also interested by the answer ( i got 12312311231 cold each years lol so if i can get something other than chemical stuff i would be really happy )
We have a blend of chamomile and licorice root. It tastes awful, but it’s very soothing.
I have a lemon mint rooibos I go to when I’m feeling a cold coming on. I don’t think it really does anything but it just feels so nice to drink that one.
Ginger! What I tend to do is take (almost) any green or rooibos I feel like drinking and just grate some ginger directly into the infuser. If it’s a plain green or rooibos, it’s fine; if it’s a flavoured tea, then I just make sure that ginger will complement the flavour. Citrus (lemon or orange, in my experience) and ginger go well together. My favourite combination is lemongrass (sorry, Azzrian) and ginger. When I visited Guyana a few years ago, I fell terribly ill very suddenly. I was delirious, with a high temperature. Our hosts went to the garden, got fresh lemongrass, and made me drink lemongrass “tea” (as in the herbal tea that doesn’t actually have any tea leaves in it). The first cup brought the fever down and the second cup got rid of it completely. Suddenly I was fine (and ravenous). It’s so effective that it’s actually called fever grass in Guyana, and I had to Google it to learn that lemongrass is the same thing (I hadn’t heard of either before). Since then I’ve sworn by the stuff.
I hope you feel better soon!
This information is totally life-changing! I never knew that about lemongrass, but now I will definitely make sure I always have some around. Makes sense why a lemon green tea I have (which has lemongrass and ginger in it) almost always makes me feel better.
I’m a mint fan. Pure peppermint or spearmint (I find peppermint sharper and more helpful). Ginger is good too, but I prefer mint’s taste and potency.
I tend to like bagged tea when I have a cold because I can not be bothered to properly brew tea when I’m feeling bad. My two favorites are Celestial Seasoning’s Vanilla Honey Chamomile and Stash’s Black Ginger. Easy and comforting.
A few years ago I went shopping when I had a pretty bad cold and a shopping assistant in one shop pulled me to the side to tell me a remedy. He said to warm up a mug of milk (or a very milk black tea) and put a small pinch of haldi powder (which is Indian for Tumeric) in whilst it’s warming up. This was completely off his own back, I was a stranger to him yet he was nice enough to take time out to help me (he must have seen my red Rudolph nose and watery eyes).
Anyway when I got home I tried it and within a couple of days of using this remedy my cold went away. I do this now every time I feel one coming on and most of the time it doesn’t turn into a fully blown cold. :)
Anybody ever see My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Remember the scene where Windex is used to cure everything? That’s how we use turmeric. =) It’s true that the folk remedy is hot milk with turmeric powder in it. The only thing is that when you have a cold, it is said that dairy should be avoided since the phlegm factory is already working overtime. =) If you avoid dairy when you have a cold (or otherwise), soy/almond/rice milk should also work; it’s the turmeric powder that’s the important ingredient, rather than the milk. This remedy should also help with swollen joints (injury or arthritis pain), and tight/painful muscles.
I find any thick black, like Assams, with agave nectar or (if you’re not vegan and prefer it) honey. For the honey, for taste I’d suggest the generic stuff in the bear shaped bottle or fireweed honey. The bear stuff I recall as having a very soothing and coating sweetness and the fireweed honey has a delightful spiciness to it.
Other than that, just lots of it.
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