Try This 5-Ingredient Spiced Tea At Home To Calm Your Gut
Who doesn’t love the warmth and calm a good cup of tea brings? Today, I want to share the recipe for a simple tea you can brew at home. And it not only tastes and smells good but can work beautifully for your gut. Yes, you can have your black tea, black coffee, and green tea. These are great, but consume them in small quantities and in the right way because they contain caffeine.
What I am sharing with you is a simple herbal spice tea.
Whether you struggle with recurring bouts of bloating, acidity, indigestion, or flatulence or are looking to give your gut a much-needed break, you can still enjoy this tea and embrace its benefits. It will make you feel calm and happy.
13 years ago, when we started practicing in the field of lifestyle and integrative medicine, we found out that using this for the gut had tremendous benefits. It has worked beautifully for many of our clients, and we hope this works for you, too. But as always, use vitamin C, which is common sense. Do not think of this herbal tea as a replacement for your medications. Keep your doctor in the loop before you try something new, especially if you are going through an ailment or are on certain medications.
Coming back to the tea, what does it do? It works to calm down your gut.
Sometimes people try prebiotics and probiotics. While these are great for populating your gut microbiome, please understand that these cannot quell inflammation. Pre and probiotics feed the microbes in your gut to perform several functions like regulating blood sugar, hormones, serotonin, and dopamine, among others in the body. This tea, however, works to reduce the inflammation in your gut.
How do you make this tea?
This tea requires three ingredients. But when I share the recipe with you, I will speak about five ingredients because I believe you can always build on the base to add more benefits. It is what I like to do. To see how much magic I can get into that 1 cup of tea so I don’t have to keep drinking different teas and concoctions throughout the day.
You need:
- 4 cups of water
- 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds (jeera)
- 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds (dhaniya)
- 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds (saunf)
Optional ingredients:
- A pinch of Sri Lankan rolled cinnamon powder/1-inch Ceylon cinnamon stick
- A pinch of ginger powder/half-inch fresh piece of mashed ginger
Method:
- Boil all the spice in 4 cups of water for about 10 minutes or until it reduces to half the quantity. It will serve you 2 cups of this spice tea.
- You don’t have to add jaggery, honey, sugar, or stevia. It tastes great just the way it is made.
Can you steep it instead of boiling it?
Some may ask – “Why can’t I just steep these spices in hot water to have it?” By the time these spices steep, the water you have boiled has already cooled. While it does work to a certain extent, it won’t give you the full benefits boiling it does. You need to boil certain spices to extract the goodness of their flavonoids, polyphenols, and other active ingredients. So, choose boiling over steeping.
How to consume it?
- The best time to consume this is 30 minutes before your meals.
- But if you missed having it, you can do this 30 minutes after your meal. You can have up to 2 to 3 cups a day.
How does it work?
As I mentioned, if you struggle with bloating, indigestion, flatulence, acidity, or gas, this will calm down your digestive system. Now, is this a magic potion? No.
While you have this, you still have to eat slowly, chew every morsel of your food, eat at the right time with the correct gaps, and avoid heavy late-night meals and snacking.
Who can benefit from this? Who should be careful?
- Whether you have gut issues or not, you can benefit from this tea.
- If you are on heavy medication or undergoing treatments like steroids, chemotherapy, radiation, and so on, you know your digestive system is all over the place. You can sip on this tea.
- You can use this for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), ulcerative colitis (UC), or Crohn’s too.
- Please note: There is always a disclaimer. When you have serious gut issues, some of these spices may create more inflammation instead of quelling it. Just tread carefully, make an informed decision, and keep your primary healthcare provider in the loop.
- If you have too much in your body or feel a burning sensation in your rectum when you pass the motion, avoid adding spices like cinnamon and ginger. Just stick to making a 3-ingredient tea of cumin, coriander, and fennel.
My hack
I like to prepare this concoction the night before. Let it cool. In the morning, when I want to drink it, I warm it up. Ensure you do not use the microwave. Heat it in a saucepan.
You can also make a liter of it by adjusting the measurement of the ingredients. Refrigerate it after that. It can last for about 2-3 days.
If you are thinking, “What if I am going to the office and cannot do this?” It’s a good question. All you need to do is make this before you leave for work or overnight, store it in a flask, and take it to work. You can heat it when required.
You can also opt to enjoy it chilled as well. The original boiling has already extracted what is needed. So, whether you choose to enjoy it like an iced tea or a warm cup of soothing tea, I leave that up to you.
The beauty of this tea is that it is caffeine-free. So it will not affect your sleep at night if you are caffeine-intolerant.
What are some properties of the ingredients of this tea?
- Calms down the gut
- Gives it a much-needed break
- Aids digestion
- Anti-inflammatory
- Antioxidant
- Antimicrobial
- Supports immunity
- Relieves bloating, gas/flatulence, indigestion and acidity
The Takeaway
When you are going through heavy treatments like chemotherapy, or radiation, or are on steroids, these can create an acidic environment in your body. This would explain why your doctor always gives you antacids.
So, try this tea but keep your doctor in the loop. Having this tea will not make you feel acidic and reduce your dependence on that antacid.
Unfortunately, there is too much antacid abuse in our country. This also makes people think they have excess acid in their body, but most people in India have low stomach acid. It is because the symptoms for both are similar. Low stomach acid, if left unaddressed, can lead to bigger problems like H.pylori, inflammation of the gut, and stomach ulcers, among other issues.
If you are going out and the meal will be heavy, if you are at a restaurant where you do not have control over the quality of food or its ingredients, you can have this 30 minutes before or after the meal.
Write to me and let me know how this works for you.
Struggling with gut issues? Need personalized guidance to rebuild your gut microbiome? We help you find a way.
Know more about our holistic and integrative Gut Health Program here
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