health - The Tea Kitchen

5 Delicious Health Benefits of Peppermint Tea

January 31, 2022

Peppermint tea has been enjoyed for centuries and was made popular thanks to its clean, crisp, and refreshing taste. Beyond its deliciousness, peppermint tea offers a variety of health benefits to drinkers — elevating the drink in an entirely new way. In this blog post, we explore the history of peppermint tea, and review five health benefits of peppermint tea that you can enjoy with every cup!

The history of peppermint tea

Peppermint tea has had a long-disputed origin story but was first recognized and used widely as medicine by the ancient colonizations of Egypt and the Middle East. This was dated and discovered in pyramids hailing from 1000 B.C., showing the extensive and rich history of the use of peppermint in dishes, oils, tinctures, and medicinal brews.

Throughout the past few centuries, the teas and blends were traded widely throughout Europe and its surrounding regions, often comprised of a blend of different mints and herbs. The popularity of the drink has continued to rise to the present day, with peppermint often being featured in a variety of blends that you can find in grocery stores and cafes.

The drink is widely enjoyed, and with good reason — you can enjoy a variety of health benefits in each earthy, sweet, and herbaceous sip.

Enjoying health benefits of peppermint tea

To fully enjoy the health benefits that you can gain from peppermint tea, you can drink 1-2 cups consistently per day. Consistency is key for long-term gain, although you may feel more immediate relief from certain ailments with a single cup. Below, we’ve compiled five of the main health benefits that you can enjoy from peppermint tea.

1. Stress reduction

Peppermint tea is one of the top teas that you can drink for stress relief and relaxation. Peppermint oil has been used for centuries as an inhalant that can help you enhance your natural resiliency and stress management processes. If you’re experiencing anxiety, peppermint tea or an infused blend can help to quiet your nerves and give you a mood boost. Plus, the overall sensory experience of tea is very soothing, as you shift your focus from the feelings to the warmth, comfort, and delicious taste of the blend.

2. Headache relief

In the peppermint leaves, there are plenty of natural oils such as menthol that provide relief from intense headaches and pains, specifically tension headaches. You can use a variety of types of peppermint products, such as oils and teas, to naturally ease tension headaches. This is due to the natural ability of the herb to promote circulation and its cooling properties. Peppermint tea can also be used in conjunction with other peppermint products, such as oils and poultices, for a more amplified effect in the body.

3. Muscle relaxant

Muscular aches and pains can happen for a variety of reasons, and often send people reaching for the medicine cabinet just to find an ounce of relief. With peppermint tea, you can enjoy the benefits that you would experience with a traditional muscle relaxant — without any of the unpleasant side effects. The oils and compounds in peppermint naturally promote circulation and relaxation, making peppermint tea an incredibly effective agent for muscular relaxation. Whether you’re experiencing lower back cramps, sore arm muscles, or menstrual cramps, peppermint tea can help.

4. Respiratory tract support

Peppermint is especially soothing and helpful for those who struggle with respiratory illness or chronic conditions — such as asthma or bronchitis. The soothing elements in the plant and tea can work similarly to eucalyptus, dilating your airways and helping the oxygen to flow freely through your respiratory system. The pleasant aroma is also strong enough to help clear your sinuses as you sip. Peppermint tea is also beneficial for those who may need additional lubrication in their lungs, and can help to clear a variety of virulent respiratory infections. The anti-inflammatory properties in the tea make it an excellent bronchodilator and can help soothe the rest of your system in the event of a flare or an infection.

5. Gastrointestinal relief

We’ve saved the best for last. Peppermint tea has been used for decades to promote a healthy GI system and can soothe a variety of stomach complaints. Most famously, the tea can easily ease the spasming of an empty or too-full stomach, help those with spasmodic disorders and nausea, as well as reduce instances of bloat. If you struggle with acid reflux, however, you may want to go to a gentler, less-strong tea or oil, such as fennel. Peppermint has a particularly strong flavor that can worsen pre-existing gastric reflux and heartburn.

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Tea Health Benefits

Heal Your Skin With Tea

June 8, 2017

Skin problems aren’t just physical. They’re highly emotional. There’s nothing like a big zit or patch of eczema to steal your confidence right when you have a big speech to give or a date to impress. A trip to the dermatologist can be expensive, and perusing the skin care aisle at your local pharmacy can feel overwhelming. But what if the answer to your skinpocalypse was in your teabag? Lucky for us, what’s inside tea—notably, antioxidants—gives your favorite drink a ton of dermatological benefits. Same goes for tea-infused topicals like facemasks and pastes. The skincare boost you’ve been looking for may already be in your cabinet!

Here’s why, briefly:

Tea contains antioxidants. That’s one of those words everybody uses, but what does it really mean? Your body contains something called “free radicals.” These are toxic atoms or molecules that damage cells by oxidizing them, which impedes their ability to function properly and ultimately causes annoying problems like acne and other fun skin problems. But antioxidants work against free radicals by making them to non-toxic. Basically, they cancel out the bad stuff free radicals do, getting rid of your zits and reducing your risk for skin cancer along the way.

Since tea contains antioxidants, it’s an ideal beverage to boost your skin’s health and appearance. Here’s how a few of our favorite teas can improve your skin:

1) Green Tea

Green tea decreases age-related skin inflammation and protects against sunburns. Plus, it reduces dark under-eye patches. When used as a topical in mask form, green tea exfoliates skin and reduces excess oil. Buh-bye shine, hello beautiful, radiant skin. For another trick, try splashing cold green tea directly on your face and watching your large pores shrink right before your eyes. Green tea’s also known to fight acne. Look for products containing at least 1% ECGG (an antioxidant in green tea) and your zits won’t know what hit ‘em. And did we mention consuming green tea fights cancer? What a showoff.

2) Chamomile

People have been using chamomile tea to treat skin problems since the days of the ancient Egyptian and Roman empires. Chamomile tea’s great for fighting dry, patchy skin and inflammatory conditions like rashes and acne. It can also be used to diminish the appearance of pesky acne scars. You can even use a cold chamomile tea bag as a compress to soothe and minimize bug bites. Who knew?

3) Oolong Tea

Feeling younger than you look? An oolong-infused paste can reduce wrinkles, dark spots, and age spots.

4) Kombucha

As we age, our skin naturally gets less elastic. But kombucha improves your skin’s elasticity, giving you a more youthful appearance by reducing lines and wrinkles.

5) Ginger Tea

Patchy, uneven skin got you down? Try drinking ginger tea, known to reduce uneven skin tone. And you thought you needed makeup for that!

7) Oregon Grape Tea

Your gut and your skin are pretty well connected. Oftentimes, a problem in your intestines shows up on your face. Oregon Grape tea contains herbs that detoxify the liver and kidneys, helping clear up the root causes of problems like eczema, acne, psoriasis, and other inflammatory issues.

8) Burdock Root Tea

Burdock removes waste from cells inside the liver, kidney, gall bladder, and lymph system, eradicating the toxins that would otherwise build up and cause perspiration, which in turn causes a bevy of skin problems like acne and eczema. Burdock tea starts acts at the cellular level and works from the inside out to keep your body from becoming overridden with bad stuff that eventually shows itself as a rash, pimple, boil, or carbuncle.

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Tea History & Culture

How Tea Will Fulfill Your New Year’s Resolutions

December 27, 2016

As the New Year approaches, it’s time to set goals for 2017. There are a number of prevalent resolutions made by people from coast to coast and farm to city, like “lose weight” and “save money.” Who doesn’t want to get healthier and pad her wallet? We’re here to let you in on a secret weapon to meet your resolutions: tea. That’s right, our favorite beverage is often a gateway to fulfilling your deepest desires. Here’s how choosing tea will help you achieve five resolutions you’ve probably made:

1) Lose Weight

Whether you want to shed those pesky last few pounds or half your body weight, tea is a smart beverage choice. Calorie-free and tasty, it’s a great alternative to soda and juice that doesn’t sacrifice flavor. Plus, there are certain tees that promote weight loss. Kelly Choi explores how certain teas can help you slim down in her book The 7-Day Flat-Belly Tea Cleanse, co-authored by the editors of Eat This, Not That. The book explains that green tea burns off fat cells, oolong tea boosts your metabolism, white tea prevents fat calls from forming in the first place, rooibos tea reduces stress hormones that cause hunger and fat storage, and mint tea can suppress your appetite. After a healthy dinner, try ending your day with a cup of mint tea. It tastes great and may ward off your desire for the midnight snack you really don’t need. The verdict is in: if the pounds need to go, tea should be coming right up.

2) Be Healthy

Beyond its ability to support weight loss, tea delivers a host of exciting health benefits, some of which we wrote about already. But here’s a few more per Today: Drinking tea may promote strong bones and reduce your risk for heart attack or stroke, it doesn’t erode your tooth enamel like other beverages do, and it can nix those annoying IBS symptoms. The New York Times also linked drinking tea with lower rates of depression, reporting that a 2015 study found that “for every three cups of tea consumed per day, the relative risk of depression decreased 37 percent.” The National Cancer Institute also reports that green tea may fight cancer, as its properties have been shown to “inhibit tumor cell proliferation and induce apoptosis in laboratory and animal studies.”

3) Spend more time with friends and family

Looking to nurture your relationships this year? There’s no simpler way to do so than by sharing a cup of tea. Invite a friend over for a one-on-one tea party, check out a cool tea parlor with your mom, surprise your bestie with a tea-infused baked good, or throw a party and serve a signature tea-based cocktail or mocktail. No matter who you want to get closer to, tea is a great way to start.

4) Save Money

Small, everyday purchases can really add up. That 4-dollar cappuccino you order every morning? By the end of the year, you’ve spent almost $1500 to start your day. If you like getting your morning beverage on the go but you’re trying to save dough, opt for a simple tea bag in hot water. Your bank account will thank you!

5) Try New Things

It’s an exciting time in the culinary world. Never have we seen more global mashups and ethnic flavors available everywhere from fast food restaurants to upscale eateries. And tea is a great place to try something new. Not sure if you’ll like a new flavor? Don’t gamble an entire entre seasoned with it; order a cup of tea infused with the new taste instead and go from there. From teas that taste like dessert to teas that will introduce you to new parts of the world, the flavors abound. Say yes to adventure in 2017, and start by brewing something new.

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Tea Health Benefits

Health Benefits of Tea

October 28, 2015

From chai to green, black to oolong, tea is a delicious and comforting brew that is chock full of healthy antioxidants and other goodies. Tea is a zero-calorie, hot or cold drink that has potential health benefits for you – incorporating a cup of tea or two in your daily life could only help you. True teas all come from the same plant, and are fermented at different rates to bring out unique flavors. These result in four main types of tea: black, oolong, green, and white tea.

Black tea is made from fermented leaves, which is why it has a dark black or red colors. Many flavors of tea fall under the black tea umbrella, such as darjeeling, earl gray, and chai. Although drinking dark brews, including coffee, is blamed for teeth staining, black tea could actually be great for your smile, perhaps due to the tannins found in the tea. The Tea Trade Health Research Association has funded studies that suggest that black tea can reduce plaque build-up and control bacteria. Additionally, a research study has shown that black tea could lower your risk of diabetes. In this study, people who had been drinking black tea on a long-term basis had a 70% lower chance of having or developing type 2 diabetes. Black tea could also boost your immune system since it contains antigens that can boost immune response, and tannins that are able to fight viruses. Lastly, since black tea has a lower amount of caffeine, it can increase blood flow to the brain without over-stimulating the heart – it won’t leave you jittery with a caffeine crash later. Definitely worth the switch over from your morning coffee!

Oolong is similar to black tea but is only partially oxidized. Like black tea, it can reduce some chronic health diseases like high cholesterol levels and heart disease. It has also been hailed as a weight management aide, supposedly due to a polyphenol compound found in it. Studies are still being done to prove the effectiveness of weight loss, but in one study, mice that were given polyphenols in addition to a fattening diet still lost overall weight and body fat. The same polyphenolic compounds have been attributed to the anti-cancer properties of oolong tea, since they can act as a chemo-preventative weapon against carcinogenic cells.

Green tea is made from leaves that are dried or heat-treated to prevent fermentation and oxidization. This process leaves it with more amounts of antioxidants than black tea, which combat free radicals in your system. These same antioxidants do wonders for your skin, and can reduce wrinkles and signs of aging. Like oolong, green tea can contribute to weight loss. It boosts your metabolism by suppressing your lipid metabolism, which reduces fatty accumulation. In a study done in Japan, mice that were fed green tea powder gained less weight and had less adipose tissue.

White tea leaves are picked when they’re very young – which makes them rare – and have a mild, delicate flavor, as well as the least amount of caffeine. It contains the same kinds of antioxidants as green tea, but in even greater quantity because they are the least processed out of all the teas. It contains fluoride, which keeps teeth strong and healthy, and possesses many of the same benefits as green tea because of their closeness with green tea. White tea is also a natural killer of bacteria and viruses due to its antioxidants that guard the immune system against many illnesses. White tea is also believed to improve bone density and strength.

So whether it’s a bold cup of black tea to kickstart your day or a soothing cup of white tea in the afternoon, incorporate tea into your daily routine for a more healthy and energizing lifestyle. Given the benefits of weight loss, bone health and cancer and diabetes prevention there’s no reason not to drink a cup of tea a day! It might even keep the doctor away!

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