Marie Nadine Antol - Healing Teas: A Practical Guide to the Medicinal Teas of the World -- From Chamomile to Garlic, from Essiac to Kombucha

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Copyright 1996 by Marie Nadine Antol

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Antol, Marie Nadine.

Healing teas: how to prepare and use teas to maximize your health / by Marie Nadine Antol.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-101-66228-1

1. Herbal teasTherapeutic use. I. Title.

RM66.H33A57 1996

615.323166dc20 95-20039

Neither the publisher nor the author is engaged in rendering professional advice or services to the individual reader. The ideas, procedures, and suggestions contained in this book are not intended as a substitute for consulting with your physician. All matters regarding your health require medical supervision. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising from any information or suggestion in this book.

I AM DEEPLY INDEBTED to the following people for sharing their expertise on various healing tea protocols:

First and foremost, I am most particularly grateful to Morgana, proprietress and guiding light of The Raven of Venice, California. She was my primary consultant on the American and European brewing herbs that comprise most of the healing teas in this book. Her vast knowlege of herbology, coupled with her long experience in dispensing the very finest of brewing herbs through her shop, made her counsel invaluable. Morgana not only read the manuscript with her expert eye, she provided some very real insight on a number of teas that I might have missed. This book is much, much richer than it would have been had she not been kind enough to give me so much time.

Thanks also go to the staff members at the Ayurvedic Health Center of Pacific Palisades, California, for supplying me with so much information on East Indian teas and the traditional healing herbs of India, and for a guided tour of their impressive facility.

My experienced consultant on the centuries-old whole-body tonic teas of China was James Rea-Bailey, who dispenses knowledge and Chinese healing teas at the Tea Garden Herbal Emporium of Venice and West Hollywood, California. His willingness to take time to discuss these sustaining and health-promoting teas with me is very much appreciated.

I appreciate, too, the efforts of David Porrello at Avery Publishing, who labored to make the measurements in this book consistent and accurate.

M Y LOVE AFFAIR with tea began a very long time ago. I not only enjoy teas of all kinds, I appreciate their gentle effects. The earliest treatment my mother applied when one of us felt ill was a nice cup of tea. She believed there was nothing a good brew couldnt fix. Considering everything Ive discovered in the past twenty years, it seems as if mother was right.

Many years ago, I became personally interested in the healing power of teas. At that time, my niece experienced a dramatic turnaround in her health through diet and herb teas. Nutritions role in health was not being discussed much back in the early 70s. I began to wonder what else medical science might have missed. Thus began my lifelong investigation of natural medicinals.

I have often wished for a book that included good basic information on healing teas. Ive done a lot of research and have yet to find a single source that told me everything I needed to know. Its taken me a long time to piece everything together. In one way or another, in a purely personal family way, Ive been working on this material for over twenty years now.

My immediate family has benefited countless times from a combination of healing teas and modern medicine. All four of my adult children still call home for advice on natural medicinals whenever something goes wrong. Im a grandmother now. My small Number One (and only) grandson has already benefited from sips of some of Grammas healing brews. I hope youll also benefit from what youll learn in this book.

To those of you seeking solid information on the healing teas, this book is the answer. , Traditional Sipping Teas, youll learn about the first cup of teabrewed 5,000 years ago by an Emperor of Chinaas well as the ancient and quite beautiful Japanese tea ceremony, and the extravagant high teas of British royalty.

Although its difficult to describe an appeal thats purely personal and necessarily subjective, Ill try to tell you what various teas taste like. From the traditional teaslike Earl Gray and English (or Irish) Breakfastto the light and delicious herbal blends, Ill give you an inkling of what to expect with your first sip. If youre already a tea drinker, maybe you havent yet sampled all the varieties available. If you think you dont like tea, Im betting that you just havent hit on the right blend yet. Either way, this chapter may encourage you to try something new in the sipping teas.

In a glimpse into how the native American medicinals and old European remedies intermingled. Expect a side excursion down to South America. Ill even give you a look at the macrobiotic teas that have come to us from Japan.

In , Healing Teas Today, youll see how ancient and modern come together. Heres where youll learn of the instances where science has validated the old beliefs. You probably already know that the science of compounding natural medicinals predates orthodox medicine by millennia. There are many, many pharmaceutical drugs in use today that originated in a steaming cup of healing tea. Ill tell you how the progression of events has brought us to the stage where we are today.

You may be surprised to learn that today, alternative medical systems like herbology, homeopathy, chiropractic, apitherapy, and the time-tested Chinese and Ayurvedic methods of healing are slowly but surely being welcomed as complementary treatments that support allopathic (orthodox) medicine. Its no longer an either/or approach to healing.

For example, in Hong Kong, the locals routinely visit health centers where allopathic and alternative practitioners work side by side. In mainland China, where the old ways long prevailed, Western medicine isnt the stepchild any longer. In this broad-based approach to health care, the watchword is whatever works. Such treatment centers are springing up in many areas of the United States. If your area does not have a facility in which Eastern and Western medicine are friends, you can still take advantage of a bit of the ancient wisdom simply by using some of the healing teas youll learn about in this book.