During this cold weather hot drinks keep the body warm but also provide that comforting feeling we are often looking for, we often want to curl up with a hot drink holding it in our hands letting the warmth flow through us.
This is the time when herbal teas can reign supreme, and one of my favourites to suggest to clients is Redbush or Rooibus tea, a native tea of South Africa it’s very easily found in many UK supermarkets now and I can even buy it in Lidl.
Aspalathus linearis is the botanical name of rooibos tea and it literally means red bush, the red variety that we tend to see here is quite sweet, is low in tannins, and is a great tea substitute. Like tea, you shouldn’t be drinking too much of it, because it can be drying to the body.
I tend to ask my clients to use it as an alternative to normal tea drinking to help reduce their caffeine intake, so if you are finding that your sleeping patterns are disrupted look at your caffeine intake which may be a factor in this.
As to the benefits of drinking rooibos, it has been found that rats had higher levels of polyphenols when they were given it, and it increased the antioxidant capacity of the liver. Also, studies have shown an increase in longevity, and cardio protective, that it can act to a small degree as an ACE inhibitor, reduce LDL-C and it can aid blood glucose management.
So this could be a good tea to swap to as part of supporting your wider health and help with an antioxidant-rich diet to help reduce oxidative stress on the body. If you are working on reducing inflammation, then this could also be helpful to swap your coffee drinking to. I quite like that it contains quercetin, which can be helpful along with nettle tea for reducing histamine responses, of course, this isn’t the fermented variety of rooibos.
