Eleven Remedies Using Tea

Originally published in issue #14 (May/June 1998) of Dr. Leung's newsletter, this post provides several remedies using tea. -ed

Tea (Camellia sinensis) has been consumed in China for several thousand years. Besides being a beverage, it is often used as a medicine. Its general health benefits (especially antioxidant effect) have recently been attributed to its flavanoids (catechin, epicatechin, etc.). These compounds are also present in abundance in black catechu (2-20%) and pale catechu (30-35%), the former from the heartwood of Acacia catechu while the latter from the leaves and twigs of Uncaria gambir. They are also present in the wood, root, leaf, and bark of many other plants. Consequently, “standardized” tea extracts artificially high in these polyphenols may not be tea extracts at all. Hence, such extracts should not be called tea extracts but should more accurately be called “tea flavanoids” or “catechin concentrates.” The reason is that the benefits of tea are not due to these polyphenols alone. Billions of people over the centuries have benefited from tea drinking, and not from ingesting these chemical units of condensed tannins! In any case, let’s get back to the wholesome tea.

The following are a few folk remedies for some common conditions from a compilation of mostly folk medicinal uses of tea, with some from classic herbals [Luo, Q. F. and G.Y. Yang, Zhongguo Yao Cha Da Quan (Compendium of Chinese Medicinal Teas), Lin Yu Cultural Enterprise Co., Ltd., Taipei, 1995]:

Flu and associated symptoms (fever, dry mouth, runny nose, etc.): (1) Heat 3 g of green tea with 6 g of gypsum in an oven or pot until crispy dry. Grind together to a fine powder. Disperse the fine powder mixture in warm boiled water, add a little honey and drink the mixture. (2) Boil 6 g of black tea with 20 g of honeysuckle flower buds (available in Chinese herb shops or food markets) for 20-30 min. Strain and add an adequate amount of sugar. Drink the tea once daily. Do this for 2 to 3 days. (3) Break up 30 g of mung bean into small pieces. Add 1 big bowl of water. Cook down to half a bowl along with 9 g of black tea wrapped in muslin or cheesecloth. Remove the tea bag. Add adequate amounts of red sugar (in thin brick-like form, available from Chinese grocers) and eat the mung bean soup. (4) Briefly boil 7 g of black tea with 10 slices of fresh ginger. Drink the tea after meals. This is also reportedly good for coughs that accompany cold and flu.

Dry cough: Steep 2 g each of black tea and dried chrysanthemum flower in boiling water for 6 min. Drink the tea after meals.

Herbal tea pillow for hypertension, dizziness, and neurasthenia: This pillow is made with used tea leaves that have been oven or sun dried. Add a small amount of jasmine tea, mix together thoroughly and stuff into a pillow case. Simply use this pillow on a regular basis. It is said to prevent or relieve hypertension. It appears that the jasmine tea is added here only as a fragrance because in another remedy for the same purposes, only spent tea is used.

Diarrhea: Soak 30 g of lotus seeds (available from Chinese grocers or food stores) in warm water for a few hrs. Add an adequate amount of rock candy and simmer until the lotus seeds are well done. To this thick soup add a cup of tea made by steeping 5 g of black tea in boiling water. Eat the soup/tea.

Insomnia: Make tea with 15 g of green tea and drink it all before 8 A.M. Grind 10 g of sour jujube kernel (available in Chinese herb shops) to a fine powder and take it with water at bedtime. Be sure not to drink any water or tea (e.g. black tea) after 8 P.M.

Hyperthyroidism: Boil 12 g of dried chrysanthemum flower in 600 ml of water for 5 min. Add 1 g of green tea and 25 g honey. Let steep for a few min. and drink the resulting tea over a period of several hrs. More boiling water can be added and the resulting tea again drunk during the rest of the day. Do this on a daily basis.

Sprained back muscles: (1) Mix 200 ml of a strong black tea (e.g., from 3-5 American/English brand tea bags) with 100 ml rice vinegar. Heat it up and drink it all at one time while warm. (2) Mix 5 g of cooked black sesame seed powder (can be prepared by baking the seeds in an oven at medium heat until dried and then ground to a powder) and 25 g red sugar in 400-500 ml hot tea prepared from 1 g green tea. Stir well and drink the thin soup while still warm in 3 portions. Do this once daily. (3) Bring to a boil 300 ml of tea made from 1 g green tea. Add 2 eggs and 2.5 g honey. Continue to simmer until the eggs are cooked (a few min). Drink the tea and eat the eggs once daily in the morning.

Shingles (herpes zoster): Simply use a very strong tea (e.g., several times stronger than the usual American tea) to wash the afflicted areas. This is also recommended for contact dermatitis, eczema, and painful inflammations.

Contact dermatitis, erythema, blisters, itching, etc.: Soak 60 g each of black tea and alum in 500 ml of water for 30 min and then boil the mixture for another 30 min. Use the resulting tea to wash afflicted areas.

Reduced vision, dizziness, and night blindness: Stir fry equal amounts of salt and lycium fruit (heating the salt first), until the fruit swells up. Remove the fruit and discard the salt. Save the fruit for later use. When ready to take this recipe, place 1 g of black tea and 10 g of chrysanthemum flower in a teapot. Add boiling water and let steep for 5 min. Pour the tea into a cup with 10 g of the stir-fried lycium fruit. Drink the tea and eat the fruit.

Garlic breath: This folk remedy calls for simply chewing black tea leaves or gargling with a strong black tea.

These and more herbal remedies are available from the volumes of Dr. Leung’s newsletter, of the same name as this blog (Leung’s Chinese Herb News). This newsletter was published and sent to subscribers (most were industry-insiders) from 1996 to 2004. The collected works now serve as an excellent reference work, created with Dr. Leung’s frank, honest opinions and down-to-earth communication style.

For more information about Dr. Leung and his writings, visit www.earthpower.com. To order the newsletter containing the remedies mentioned above, visit the bookstore, click “Buy Now” on the newsletter, and select Issue # 14 from the drop down list.

Yet Another Confusing Coffee Article

“Caffeine shown to slow loss of memory in older women” by Maria Kubacki, Canwest News Service. The Gazette, Montreal, Tuesday, August 7, 2007, page A11.

This article is not about caffeine. It’s about coffee! But the mix-up is not the author’s fault. Maria Kubacki was simply quoting the lead researcher, Karen Ritchie, of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, who equated caffeine with coffee, a big leap of faith, and certainly behind the times in natural products research. The study was published in the current issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Twenty-five years ago, you could get away with such assumptions and equating an active component (which is one of many) of a natural food, drink, or medicine to be responsible for all its pharmacologic activities. Nobody would question you then because little research was being performed on the natural material’s other active components; and most researchers viewed a natural substance as if it were a single-chemical drug, for example, caffeine as coffee. It is no longer the case. The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) passed in October of 1994 has changed all that. Since then, scientific research on natural medicines or supplements has been broadened to not just fixate on a particular chemical component, but rather begin to look at their totality and how they actually may benefit people. And in its totality, coffee is not caffeine!

Common drinks such as coffee and tea used to be considered synonymous with caffeine and/or theophylline. But research over the past ten to twenty years has found them to be rich in other phytochemicals such as polyphenols (e.g., up to 10% chlorogenic acid, an anti-inflammatory polyphenol) that have strong antioxidant properties. That’s not all. There are other potentially beneficial chemicals or phytonutrients also present. However, since these findings are still not widely known except through marketing by dietary supplement companies, the mainstream press largely ignores them. Which is why in both the scientific and popular media, coffee is still so often reported as caffeine. Another reason is old habits are difficult to break. Many conventionally trained health researchers tend to continue to confuse an active chemical with an intact botanical or any natural material, for that matter. Thus, some still use ginseng (whatever kind), Echinacea, tea, or coffee as if it were a single-chemical drug in their research and reporting. It appears the French researchers and the Neurology journal reviewers and editors fall into this category.

In any case, in the current report, three or more cups of coffee or tea daily was found to slow memory loss in older women, especially those over 80. The authors of the study readily pointed out this benefit as due to caffeine. Yet this was not a drug study. The drug, caffeine, was not consumed by itself, but rather as a constituent in coffee along with hundreds of other chemicals, some of which have been shown to be strongly antioxidant and possibly with other more important pharmacologic effects on Alzheimer’s disease as well. If the researchers were more cognizant of the other beneficial components of coffee and tea (as both have another thing in common – high polyphenols content), they might have discovered something important which could stimulate new research on coffee and tea. Instead, it’s more of the same based on the wrong premises. It’s a pity! The effects of other coffee and tea components besides caffeine are worth serious scientific study. It may even resolve some of the controversies about coffee, or caffeine.

Learn more about coffee and read further about Dr. Leung and his writings! Visit http://www.earthpower.com/.