Homemade Teas for Your Health
Updated on June 14, 2021
Fall is finally upon us and, even though we love summer, we can’t say that we’re very upset about it! We’ve always loved the bright colours and fresh, crisp fragrances of fall, even if we start to get a little bit chilly. We also love change, especially seasonal change, because it makes us feel renewed and ready to tackle the next few months with vigor.
Even so, there’s one small drawback that really gets us each time one season rolls into another; seasonal colds! It doesn’t matter what season it is or what type or whether change we’re going through, you can bet we’ll catch at least a small cold without fail.
Since it’s usually pretty mild, however, we often prefer to keep our treatments to a minimum, using mild, natural methods of easing our symptoms and healing our bodies rather than running to the doctor and jumping on antibiotics or bursting into the pharmacy and clearing their shelves of cold and flu medications.
We usually save those things for the more dire situations when the weather is much harsher. Instead, we tackle fall sniffles with a series of natural DIY remedies that are usually just as delicious as they are helpful.
What’s our favorite way to treat a fall cold, then? Well, the past few years we’ve found ourselves completely addicted to healing teas. In fact, that applies all year round and to most ailments rather than just fall colds, but these recipes are particularly relevant right now! The best part is that you can’t really get addicted to these remedies the way you can to pharmaceutical cures, so you’re free to make them as often as your body feels the need for them! Check out these 15 awesome tasting and totally effective teas that will help you amp up your health this fall and leave you feeling a little more prepared to tackle the pending winter chill.
1.Honey lemon ginger tea
If you’re a bit of a tea aficionado like ourselves, then you probably already know how soothing honey, lemon, and ginger can be on things like sore throats. Did you know, though, that this combination of ingredients steeps in hot water has a few other awesome health benefits as well? This simple recipe fromBody Building Storeis actually one that we find ourselves making all year round because it also helps boost metabolism. We appreciate how that characteristic makes us feel less bloated and full during holiday periods when we’ve been eating a lot!
2.DIY green tea face wash
Okay, we know we said this post was all about delicious health teas, and a face wash is certainlynot something you’d consume on a chilly fall morning, but this particular recipe is tea based and so effective that we just couldn’t bear to leave it off our list! Green tea is one of those magical things that has a laundry list of benefits and positive characteristics, but we’re particularly fond of taking advantage of how it reinvigorates the skin. Using a DIY green tea based face wash like this one fromSouthern Zoomer will help you feel refreshed each morning and will also help keep your skin clear and healthy during the difficult period where the change of seasons throws your body off kilter just a little.
3.DIY darjeeling tea
Darjeeling based teas are awesome remedies for all kinds of things and, at the very least, they’ll help you feel energized and awake no matter what kind of blend you’re enjoying. Our primary reason for enjoying a good Darjeeling during a season change, however, is that the particular mixture of herbs and ingredients you’ll find in the basic recipe has the power to positively influence your blood sugar levels such that you might find it helpful in controlling the symptoms of hypoglycemia. Give it a try with this simple recipe from Natural Home Remedies!
4.Homemade Chai tea
We’ll be straight with you- Chai tea is just plain delicious. Even just the smell of it is enough to make us enjoy the entire experience of making ourselves a nice warm mug of Chai tea before we’ve even gotten it to our mouths to taste. Beyond being both fragrant and mouth-wateringly good, however, did you know that Chai tea actually bears several great health benefits as well? The antibacterial characteristics of the herbs it combines are such that, even if you add milk and sugar to make the tea more to your tastes, enjoying a cup every once in a while can help you with digestion, intestinal inflammation, and stomach or gut related infections.
5. Homemade kombucha
If you like to keep up on food and diet trends or you’ve been anywhere near a coffee shop in the past few months, then you already know that this year’s biggest diet and health craze is kombucha! If you ask us, though, this one’s more of a great discovery than just a trend. Besides having a wonderfully unique and almost spicy flavour that suits a wide range of delicious flavour combinations, kombucha is a probiotic ingredient, making it very helpful for healthy and comfortable digestion whether you enjoy it hot or cold. Check out how The Organic Dieticianprepares theirs!
6.Hibiscus tea
Have you ever seen movies where an old fashioned healer whips up a healthy tea to help cure somebody but it appears that all they’re doing is grabbing flowers from the woods and boiling them? Well, believe it or not, brewing a tea from flowerscan actually be beneficial (and delicious) if you use the right flowers! One of the best recipes around for overall health any time of year is the basic recipe for hibiscus tea. Besides being fragrant and delicious, like most of the teas on this list, it also helps you naturally reduce high blood pressure and control cholesterol levels. Just in case you’ve never made hibiscus tea before and could use some guidance, here’s a great simple recipe from DIY Natural.
7.Homemade apple tea
Are you absolutely open to making yourself an awesomely health tea just to pre-emptively boost your immune system, but taste is alsovery important to you? In that case, you might be better to choose a kind that you already know you’ll love the flavour of but that naturally has built-in health benefits as well. Apple tea is a great example of what we mean! You’ll get that great, refreshing apple taste that reminds you of fall and delicious cider, but you’ll also get more of the natural nutrients that actual apples contain, preparing your body and immune system better to fight off change of season colds.We love this apple tea recipe fromNatural Green Mom!
8. Homemade sore throat tea
We already mentioned how honey, lemon, and ginger tea can help with sore throats even while it benefits your metabolism and digestion, but what if your throat isreally sore and not up for the feeling that some sweet ingredients and flavours add to the concoction? In that case, even though honey is an awesome antibacterial ingredient, you might be better off with a more simplified recipe that will just help your throat and get the healing process started without hassle. This extra simple cold and flu sore throat tea fromLive Simply is made with ginger and lemon and works faster than you might think for easy ingredients that might even already be in your kitchen!
9.Herbal Kool Aid
Okay, we admit that this awesome, all natural homemade drink isn’tquite on theme with our post, but we keep all of the ingredients for this one in the same place as we keep our teas and it’s just so good that we can’t help including it anyways. Besides, as long as it’s made with herbs, it’s kind of like making yourself an iced tea, right? Each of the ingredients in this awesome all natural version of Kool Aid has its own subtle health benefits, but overall this drink is mostly just a great health alternative to the popular sugar loaded powder mix. It uses organic, all natural ingredients instead of dyes and sweeteners and that’s enough for us to consider it a health drink! Check out howDivine Health From The Inside Out made a delicious, more health conscious version of Kool Aid using nettle leaf, dried hibiscus, dried spearmint, and dried stevia leaf.
10.Basic cold and flu tea
We’ve talked about some pretty fancy recipes on this list and each one of those is awesomely beneficial and pretty great tasting. Sometimes, however, it’s nice to go back to basics, especially when you’re not feeling your best. That’s why we always keep some basic cold and flu tea around! We’d suggest premixing this one so that it’s already on hand when you wake up one morning feeling under the weather. That way you don’t have to go tracking the ingredients down with a runny nose!DIY Natural created this awesome aches and fever reducing tea from Echinacea, peppermint, lemon balm leaves, and elder berries.
11.Soothing pregnancy tea
Are you expecting any month now, so you’re extra concerned about feeling under the weather but you’realso quite cautious about what you consume, since you’re looking out for both the baby’s healthand your own? We can’t say we blame you! There are plenty of seemingly regular things that can have adverse effects on pregnant women, so it’s worth erring on the safe side. That’s why we were so glad to find this awesome recipe that’s tried and true and has been tested and approved by knowledgeable women who have caught colds while pregnant themselves! This recipe fromThe Toups Address will not only help several cold symptoms, it’ll also ease general hardships like nausea, muscle cramps, and uncomfortable digestion. Make your own with nettle leaves, peppermint, and red raspberry leaves!
12. Mullein tea
One of our favourite parts of discovering new healthy teas is finding out that many of the most effective recipes are actually effective for more than one thing! That means we get double the health benefits even if we only sought the recipe out for one thing. Being made to feelextra good in a natural, comfortable, and delicious way is never a bad thing, right? That’s why we loved this mullein tea fromDIY Natural. We originally tried it because the common weed it’s brewed with is a natural decongestant, making it great for colds, but it also helps move water through the kidneys at a slightly faster (but totally safe) rate, helping to flush bacteria out of your system and heal you more quickly.
13.Green tea skin toner
Do you find that, during your particularly severe seasonal change colds, your skin sometimes suffers along with your more internal characteristics? We get that too, so we fully understand how uncomfortable it can be. That’s why we were so thrilled when we found this natural face and skin toner made with green tea. You get the full rejuvenating essence of a really effective, cleansing skin toner, but the green tea gives you the added benefits of being antibacterial, reducing redness, and easing swelling around irritated areas of the face. See how it’s made on Shwin & Shwin.
14.Loose leaf tea for bath and body
By now, you’ve probably tried or at least realized the benefits of drinking all manners of loose leaf tea in order to help yourself relief all kinds of symptoms that arise when the seasons change. Did you know, though, that brewed tea can haveexternal benefits for you as well? It might sound like a weird thing to draw a bath and put tea in it as though you’re brewing a giant portion and climbing right into the mug, but we promise it’s effective (and really quite nice)!Jaclyn Creations suggests blending jasmine, chamomile, and green tea with Epsom salts and a few drops of your favourite essential oils in a bath in order to naturally ease muscle aches and reduce inflammation. We can’t think of anything more relaxing during a bad cold or flu.
15.Matcha green tea fudge protein bars
If green tea is both delicious and beneficial as a drink, it only makes sense that it probably tastes good when it’s incorporated in snacks, right? We sure thought so, which is why we couldn’t wait to try these awesome green tea protein bars fromDesserts With Benefits! Their fudgy consistency makes it feel like you’re treating yourself but the matcha green tea element will keep you full of good protein and nutrients when your body needs it most, making sure you’re fuelled for your day until you can go home and get some rest.
Do you know of or regularly drink another type of tea that’s easy to make at home and haslots of health benefits, but you don’t see it on our list? Tell us all about your recipe and what it does for you in the comments section!