Benefit, Harm, How to Properly Brew and Drink

Every­one has heard of rooi­bos tea, but few know how to prop­er­ly brew and drink it. If you want to know whether rooi­bos tea is good for you and how to pre­pare this drink cor­rect­ly, read our new arti­cle.

Unsplash

An exot­ic caf­feine-free drink with a pleas­ant aro­ma and taste is about rooi­bos tea, a South African drink that per­fect­ly tones and has many use­ful qual­i­ties. From this arti­cle you will learn:

What is rooibos?

It is cus­tom­ary to call red ton­ic tea rooi­bos. This tea appeared on the Ukrain­ian mar­ket recent­ly, and not every­one knows how to brew it cor­rect­ly. But the one who once learned and drank prop­er­ly brewed rooi­bos tea will not want any oth­er tea.

Rooi­bos tea is made from the leaves of a shrub that grows in South Africa. It is called aspala­tus lin­ear, pop­u­lar­ly it is sim­ply “red bush”. It dif­fers from oth­er shrubs in that it has red branch­es and nar­row leaves. It is these leaves that are used to make tea.

First, they are cut and ground, and then sub­ject­ed to fer­men­ta­tion. It is thanks to the fer­men­ta­tion process that the tea acquires a red hue and a pleas­ant sweet­ish taste with woody notes. This is how red rooi­bos is made. But there is still a rare green rooi­bos. For this, the leaves are not fer­ment­ed, but dried in the sun.

Composition and benefits of rooibos tea

Rooi­bos tea, both green and red, con­tains many use­ful sub­stances, vit­a­mins, and most impor­tant­ly, amino acids.

Composition of rooibos tea:

• Vit­a­min A, B vit­a­mins (B1, B2, B6, B12), vit­a­mins E, P, K and D, as well as ascor­bic acid.
• Mag­ne­sium, zinc, flu­o­rine, sodi­um, iron.
• Antiox­i­dants (50% more than in green tea).
• Aro­mat­ic oils.

Impor­tant infor­ma­tion about rooi­bos tea. It does not con­tain caf­feine and also has a low con­tent of tan­nins.

Unsplash

Useful properties of rooibos tea:

• It slows down the aging process of body cells, helps to pre­serve youth and activ­i­ty.
• It is a pre­ven­tion of onco­log­i­cal dis­eases, because it con­tains a large amount of antiox­i­dants that sup­press free rad­i­cals in the body.
• Sup­ports liv­er and kid­ney func­tion.
• It is a nat­ur­al antibi­ot­ic, relieves pain.
• Low­ers body tem­per­a­ture, helps reduce fever dur­ing ill­ness.
• Dis­in­fects the oral cav­i­ty, helps reduce irri­ta­tion after den­tal pro­ce­dures.
• Helps to get rid of skin prob­lems, shown to those who have acne.
• It helps with con­sti­pa­tion and diar­rhea, because it improves the work of the intestines.
• Reduces the impact of stress on the body, relax­es (main­ly due to the high con­tent of aro­mat­ic oils).
• Reduces pres­sure.
• Nor­mal­izes the lev­el of sug­ar in the blood.
• It has a weak anti­his­t­a­mine effect.
• Sup­ports the body’s assim­i­la­tion of cal­ci­um, ascor­bic acid, flu­o­ride and iron.

Who can not drink rooibos tea

The ben­e­fi­cial prop­er­ties of rooi­bos tea sound very pleas­ant, but it is still worth pay­ing atten­tion to the neg­a­tive fea­tures. Every med­i­cine can be poi­son if it is used incor­rect­ly or giv­en to some­one who can­not take it.

So, the main con­traindi­ca­tions of rooi­bos tea are as fol­lows:

• Indi­vid­ual intol­er­ance, aller­gy to rooi­bos or its com­po­nents.
• Exac­er­ba­tion of chron­ic dis­eases of the stom­ach — gas­tri­tis, ulcer.
• Low­ered blood pres­sure, as tea low­ers it even more.

Be care­ful! If you have dia­betes, you should con­sult your doc­tor before adding rooi­bos tea to your diet.

Improperly prepared rooibos is the main contraindication

Do not drink a lot of rooi­bos tea every day, as it can cause swelling, rash­es, itch­ing in the body. And, of course, you can’t drink hot rooi­bos — the tem­per­a­ture of the drink should be no more than 50 degrees Cel­sius. Hot rooi­bos can cause stom­ach cramps, and for those with migraines, even a headache attack.

Can you drink rooibos tea during pregnancy?

If you do not have an indi­vid­ual reac­tion to tea, low blood pres­sure or chron­ic stom­ach dis­eases — yes. If you have dia­betes, you should con­sult a doc­tor.

The drink is use­ful for preg­nant women because it does not con­tain caf­feine. That is why you can drink it not only dur­ing preg­nan­cy. Rooi­bos dur­ing breast­feed­ing is also use­ful for the baby and moth­er.

Sys­tem­at­ic con­sump­tion of rooi­bos tea will help cope with stress, which a preg­nant woman has a lot of. Also, this tea helps remove excess flu­id from the body and fights swelling. The good news is that rooi­bos tea helps to cope with tox­i­co­sis.

Unsplash

How to properly brew and drink rooibos

We have already writ­ten that improp­er­ly brewed rooi­bos tea can be a real dis­as­ter. And not only in taste.

So, in order for rooi­bos tea to give all the use­ful sub­stances and ful­ly reveal its taste, it should be brewed cor­rect­ly. It’s all quite sim­ple, you need a sim­ple teapot and boil­ing water.

Brewing rooibos tea

• Scald the teapot with boil­ing water and pour dry rooi­bos tea into it. 1 tea­spoon of tea is need­ed for 1 cup of boil­ing water. That is, if you have three friends at home, you will need four spoons of tea and four glass­es of boil­ing water.
• Cov­er the tea with a lid and let it brew for 30 min­utes. Then you can pour it into cups.

Advice from the author. If you want to make rooi­bos tea even tasti­er, add a spoon­ful of hon­ey and a slice of lemon to each cup. I also like to add a piece of gin­ger for fla­vor. And rooi­bos can be brewed in milk. To do this, sim­ply replace the water in this recipe with hot milk. Try it: it’s very tasty.

How to drink rooibos tea

Rooi­bos tea should be drunk from a porce­lain or glass con­tain­er, earth­en­ware does not like this drink.

Also remem­ber that the most use­ful rooi­bos is cold or warm. You should­n’t drink hot rooi­bos, unless you want to spend half a day with a headache.

And what kind of tea do you like to drink?