Lavender may be the flower that people are most familiar with in the world. Except for being an interior and garden decoration, its products are everywhere in our life, such as essential oil, perfume, seasoner, etc. Once you dry its bud and make lavender tea, it will be an awesome herbal tea full of health benefits.
Lavender, A Herb Full of Excellent Uses
Lavender belongs to woody shrubs with dense, tiny, and purple flowers. It originated in the south of France and Italy, along the Mediterranean coast. From the 13th century, lavender began to be planted enormously and now spread all over the world. Once we talk about this plant that we may easily associate it with Provence, France. Even you have never been there, from the media, you know there are lavender fields all over mountains and plains. As a used-to-be photographer, I also loved to find the shot-view in the local lavender garden. It’s easy to get a wonderful blurry background and foreground with a telephoto lens.
Of course, lavender’s use is more than just a landscape. Since ancient times, the unique aroma of this herb has been loved deeply by people. In legend, Maria used to incense Jesus’ cloth with lavender. And most of the time, lavender is also regarded as a Romantic Love symbol.
The ancients found that this fragrance affects pacifying emotion, easing headaches, helping sleep, and it lasts a long time. The dried lavender buds can make herbal teas, spices for cooking, sachets in the cloth, and even taking within the bath.
As the chemical technique improves, people extract the concentrated essential oil from lavender, which has a more robust fragrance and lasts longer; this is the most widespread use of lavender. The lavender essential oil is often taken as one ingredient of the perfume, shampoo, soap, laundry detergent, and skincare products; it is also used in aromatherapy.
The Flavor Hard To Satisfy Everyone
Although people are having lavender tea for a long history, its flavor is not fit everybody, especially when you brew it alone. The tea made from dried lavender buds shows slight purple(influenced by the petal’s count and concentration) and a noticeable scent. Some people like this mild, quiet floral, but some thought it smelled like the bathing shampoo or soap and was hard to accept.
Everyone has their own taste. And even you never tried pure lavender tea, you have possibly had the blended tea or flavored tea with its component. Blended tea products from the old brands like Twinings and Lipton, often with lavender in(typically is the essential oil,) in the evening tea items. For balancing the flavor better but not lose the character, and better effects, these products are usually flavored with chamomile and lemon. They are the best match found based on a long practice.
Modern people sometimes experience lavender’s charm in other ways, such as making lavender milk tea or fruit tea. Just like the rose, these flowers have a high latitude on the taste, without any robust medical flavor like other herbs. And the adorable purple color is very fit for bubble milk tea, such a beverage loved by young people.
What Is Lavender Tea Good For
Many ancient folk treatments put lavender into the recipes as an ingredient, either internal or external use; it gives an excellent effect. However, most of the time, the benefits come from its essential oil, which is in a higher concentration and works better.
Anyway, having lavender herbal tea or lavender essential oil contained blended tea can also get the following benefits:
Helps Sleep
To help a good dream may be said is the most famous characteristic of lavender. Some traditional families still set a small lavender sachet side by their children’s pillow to help them fall asleep. Having a cup of lavender tea 2 hours before bed, better to make with chamomile, which has the same benefit(this is also most evening teas’ recipe.) You don’t need to finish the cup, left half on the night table; its mild and peaceful aroma will fill the room with steam and improve the effect.
The worthing thing is that some flavored black teas also contain lavender, but they can not give the helps sleep effect. The caffeine in the true teas may even be easy to cause insomnia.
Relieve Anxiety And Depression
Lavender essential oil is often used in aromatherapy to help to calm people’s emotions. A study in 2019 ever had a test on 60 aged people, letting them have 2g lavender tea in both the morning and evening, last for two weeks. The result shows that having lavender tea gives great help in releasing anxiety and depression, and recommend taking it as a complementary therapy for anxiety and depressive disorder treatment. Even though the study lacks enough data to support it, having lavender tea is always good for mood, especially breathing its fragrant steam when drinking.
Reducing Pain
It is said Elizabeth I, the British Queen, ever tried to treat her migraines by drinking lavender tea. Lots of research shows that lavender’s aroma components are easily absorbed by the body, affect the nerve, and relieve them. It has great help to some chronic pains among older people, migraines, and female postpartum and menstrual pain. Compared with taking aromatherapy, drinking a cup of lavender tea is more convenient and low-cost.
Help Digestion
Ancients also treat stomachache by drinking lavender tea, although it was mostly made to mix other herbs. Researchers found that lavender contains antioxidant components like rosmarinic acid, which helps against muscle spasms, and relieves stomach upset, abdomen distends, and dyspepsia, such as digestion problems.
Other Possible Benefits
If you don’t like the lavender essential oil, you can regard the lavender tea as its diluted substitute use. It can also give a certain effect but will not be so obvious.
Hair Growth
Researchers ever tested on the rats with lavender essential oil and got an encouraging result of hair growth. Of course, you won’t get the satisfying benefit as the same through having lavender tea. Maybe you can try to smear the left tea on your head? I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Accelerate Wound Healing
The ancient Egyptian used lavender infusion to accelerate wound healing. Studies told us that it is because of the antioxidant property of lavender. But at the same time, researchers also do not recommend daubing the wound with lavender essential oil or tea directly because it is a considerable risk.
Improve Respiratory System
The fascinating aroma of lavender can not only soothe emotion and ease anxiety but also help with respiratory system diseases like bronchitis, all because of its antioxidant property. The study thought it had a hope to be an alternative medicine for asthma treatment.
Potential Side Effects
Lavender tea and its blended teas are regarded safe. There isn’t any explicit evidence that it will harm health. But consider that many uncertainties about every herbal tea, and that lavender tea indeed does some medical action to the body, so the following people who should avoid drinking it:
- Pregnant Women. Most herbal teas are not suitable for women during pregnancy, except for raspberry leaf tea. However, you still need to ask your midwife for advice.
- Adolescent Boys. Ever a case about an adolescent boy having too much lavender tea and caused mazoplasia, the symptoms disappeared after stopping consumption.
- People during medication. Lavender tea may have interactions with some medicines. You need to consult your doctor before drinking it.
How To Make Lavender Tea Tastes Better
Like I said previously, pure lavender tea has an attractive fragrant but weak taste. We can make it with other ingredients together to get a better flavor and benefits.
- Prepare a 500ml teapot, better with an infuser inside;
- Put dried lavender and chamomile in, 5g for each;
- Fill in 100℃ water, steep for 3 minutes;
- Put a lemon slice in the cup, few drops of honey, then poke a few on the lemon slice with a spoon to get some juice;
- Pour the tea in, stir lightly;
- enjoy;
References
Lavender and the Nervous System;
Chemical compound found in essential oils improves wound healing;
Lavender essential oil in the treatment of migraine headache: a placebo-controlled clinical trial;
The Effectiveness of Aromatherapy in Reducing Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis;
Lavender and sleep: A systematic review of the evidence;
Hair Growth-Promoting Effects of Lavender Oil in C57BL/6 Mice;
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