Herbal Medicine Making Skill: How to Make Specialized Tea Blends

How to make specialized tea blends

Making tea is one of the most fundamental skills of the herbalist. When blending tea for health issues there is usually one main problem that the herbal blend addresses. Often a second herb will be added that offers a synergistic effect to the first herb, multiplying its effectiveness. And then a third herb might be introduced in a minor role that balances the first herb. This is the general principle for blending herbal mixtures for teas or tinctures.

Herbal tea with wild flowers and berry on wooden background – bio food, health and diet concept

Let’s recap that:

3 Herbs:

1 herb that addresses the main complaint (Green tea, in this case)

1 herb that compliments the first herb and multiplies the effect (Lavender compliments the skin healing properties of green tea)

1 herb that is used to counteract an over-action of the first herb, such as a sweet herb to counteract a bitter herb, or a moistening herb to counteract a drying herb. In the case of this remedy marshmallow is added as a soothing, moistening herb to counter act the drying, astringent effect of the green tea.

In this blend that we created for sunburn relief, green tea is the primary herb that has documented evidence for relief of burns (see the references in the last lesson) and offers protection against skin damage.

Lavender is another herb that is commonly used for burns and it has added antimicrobial and analgesic properties that enhance the green tea’s actions. These two herbs alone will go a long way in soothing, cooling,and healing sun damaged skin. The minor herb here is marshmallow which is both cooling and soothing. It balances the astringent qualities of the tannins in the green tea. It will make the mixture just a little thicker with it’s mucilage, so that it will stay on the skin a little longer.

This herbal tea is intended to swab on the skin directly, but the tea is safe enough to drink and has a pleasant flavour. So once you’ve used the cool tea on the burn, go ahead and drink it. It’s pain relieving and it still helps the skin even when you consume it.

Note that if the sunburn victim is allergic to lavender, the herb can be left out of the mixture. As my experience demonstrates, the green tea alone will suffice to cool a sunburn if the other herbs are unavailable or inadviseable. This remedy is safe for children and infants when used topically.