As far back as 1830 botanists at the Cape made sketches of the Rooibos shrub and published their work. Since then scientists around the world have published their Rooibos research findings in a wide variety of leading scientific journals.
In 2008 Professor Lizette Joubert of the Agricultural Research Council and Professor Wentzel Gelderblom of the Medical Research Council, along with two more collaborators, published an overview of existing knowledge about the history, cultivation, traditional uses, composition and biological activity of Rooibos and other South African herbal teas. Their 37-page review article was published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology.*
Key facts about the composition of Rooibos, and the importance of its compounds, can be summarised as follows:
• Rooibos contains a complex mix of many flavonoids (compounds widely found in plants that are known to have health
benefits).
• Its composition is unique, because it contains aspalathin - to date only isolated from Aspalathus linearis (the botanical
name for Rooibos).
• Aspalathin is the major flavonoid of unfermented Rooibos. It decreases during fermentation, but is still a major flavonoid
constituent of fermented Rooibos (the tea with the characteristic red-brown colour and flavour).
• Aspalathin is important, not only because it is a novel compound, but also because it is the most active antioxidant in
Rooibos in many cases.
• Rooibos also contains the rare flavonoid glucoside nothofagin.
• Other major phenolic compounds are orientin and iso-orientin, with smaller amounts of vitexin and isovitexin and many
more compounds.
• The flavonoid composition of Rooibos varies between different regions and seasons, probably due to different soil and
climate conditions, as well as genetic variations in the seeds used to propagate the plant.
• Rooibos does not contain caffeine.
• It is considered a low tannin beverage, especially when compared to Camellia sinensis (black) tea. • The antioxidant activity of teas is very important, because they can scavenge free radicals and so help to protect cells and
lipids (fats) against oxidative damage. Several studies have shown that Rooibos extracts contain powerful free radical
scavengers.
• The flavonoids in Rooibos are also able to modulate (influence) the actions of carcinogens in the cell, thereby preventing or
slowing down cancer. The major flavonoids in Rooibos (and possibly also other Rooibos compounds that are still unknown) demonstrate antimutagenic properties. In some studies green (unfermented) Rooibos is a more potent antimutagenic agent, while other studies found that fermented Rooibos has a higher antimutagenic effect. The type of mutagen (cancer causing substance) also has an effect.
• The antioxidants in Rooibos also protect the liver against oxidative stress and it could have value for liver patients. Studies on Japanese quails have shown that Rooibos also has an antihemolytic effect (protecting blood cells) and anti-ageing properties (slowing down brain degeneration and prolonging fertility).
• The bronchodilatory, antispasmodic and blood pressure lowering effects of Rooibos, and its potential to stimulate the immune system, has been shown in some studies, but needs to be further explored.
• Human studies have shown that taking Rooibos is an effective way to treat several skin conditions. It decreased the incidence of herpes simplex within a few days, helped for itching (associated with dermatitis), and could reduce inflammation and sun sensitivity of the skin.
* Joubert, E., Gelderblom, W.C.A., Louw, A., De Beer, C., 2008. South African herbal teas: Aspalathus linearis, Cyclopia spp. and Athrixia phylicoides - A review. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 119, 376 - 412.

1. Cover a one pound roast with 1/4 cup of black tea leaves, 1/4 cup of garlic, 1/4 cup of chipotles, and 2 tablespoons of curry spices
2. Use 1/2 cup of fully brewed English Breakfast tea to deglaze a pan of sauteed mushrooms and the result is a deliciously rich and tasty sauce
3. Sprinkle a few Darjeeling tea leaves over raw fruits or vegetables for added zest
4. Instead of using beef, chicken or vegetable stock, use brewed tea. White tea is perfect for clear broth soups and lighter sauces, but, use Oolong and black tea for beef based sauces and soups.
5. Boil rice in green tea instead of water. The healthy result is so wonderfully tasty you’ll skip the butter, oil and salt.

Most stores now have a line of “natural” beauty products. Unfortunately, they often come with a big price tag attached too. Often times many of these products are not actually “natural” so it does pay to do your homework to ensure you are getting what you pay for.

Fortunately actually making beauty products yourself isn’t too difficult. So if you want beauty products that you know are natural and are also inexpensive, just make them yourself. Here are 5 quick and easy recipes you can make at yourself.

Face Mask
Eating good food helps give you the right nutrients you need to look good. You can get more of these vitamins and minerals by putting the good stuff right on the skin.

Combining a mashed carrot, mashed avocado, and a beaten egg with a half cup a few tablespoons of honey creates a great face mask that provides vitamins, and improves the tone and texture of your skin. Just stir well, apply, let sit for about 15 minutes, and then wash off with cool water.

After you’re washed and nourished your skin, you can use grated cucumber or diluted lemon juice as a toner to help tighten your skin and close up your pores to close your pores and keep your skin looking great.

Hair Conditioner
Many people pay a lot of money for a conditioner that actually makes your hair look and feel good. Here’s a great natural recipe to save you money and help your hair.

Just mix an egg yolk with a tablespoon of castor oil and apply to hair. Let sit for about ten minutes and rinse out. You can use this every so often as a conditioning treatment for healthy shiny hair. If you like being experimental, you can try mixing other kitchen items, herbs, and natural items with eggs for healthy, shiny hair.

Hand and Foot Cream
A quick face mask will help make you look great in not a lot of time, but hands and feet require extra care.

Use ½ cup of olive oil mixed with natural sea salt and massage into your hands and feet. Leave a few minutes to soak and then rinse off with warm water.

When it comes to natural beauty products, these recipes are just the start. You can find hundreds of different combinations in natural beauty books, magazines, and on the internet. Or you can go to your kitchen cabinet and make your own special creations.

Pick appropriate plants. Not all plants are appropriate for the area you live in. While you might be able to control the temperature, humidity, and rain conditions inside your house, you can’t do it out in the garden. If you pick appropriate plants for your area, you may be able to avoid using fertilizers and saving on water too. Research, what plants are native to your surrounding areas and try planting them in your own garden. Wildflowers, are just that, they can pretty much be left alone and will thrive in most areas.

Pick natural repelling plants. You don’t need to rely on poisons to keep away garden ruining pests. Many plants produce chemicals that repel these animals naturally. By putting them in or around you garden, you can keep your garden safe with little effort and no chemicals. Plus, you can pick parts of these plants and use them to make products to keep them away from you too.

If you don’t want to plant natural repellents in your garden, you can use them to spray your plants without harming them or adding artificial chemicals to your garden. Many herbs like hot pepper, vanilla, and lavender can help repel insects from your garden.

Pull weeds. We’re all looking for a quick and easy way to safely get rid of weeds without chemicals, but the good old fashioned way is still very effective.  It you take time every day to pull the weeds you can find, you’ll only take a few minutes so it doesn’t seem like a lot of work.  You can even get the kids involved, just be sure to do it properly so you don’t spread the seeds around.  There are even some common weeds that are edible, just make sure there are no pesticides that could have gotten on them.

Crop rotation. Farmers all over the world use crop rotation to naturally fertilize plants. The concept is to change what crop you’re putting in a certain field each year. Plants use different nutrients and put other nutrients back into the soil. If you rotate crops that replace the nutrients the other plants use, you will have to fertilize the soil less.

You can use this same concept in your garden by planting different plants every year, or just rotating where you put specific plants in the garden.

So, you’ve made all these changes and are using a low-water, chemical free garden?  Well, you still haven’t done the most important thing: pass it on! One garden can make a dent, but more can make a bigger difference. Tell your friends, teach your kids, you can even visit their school and teach your kids friends! Every little bit helps make a better world.

A favorite among tea connoisseurs, oolong tea is cultivated in Taiwan and Southeast China. Until recently, oolong has been consumed primarily in China and Japan, but with the awareness of health benefits surfacing world wide, oolong, as well as all teas, have seen tremendous growth in interest from around the globe.

All four types of teas (white, green, oolong, and black) come from the camellia sinensis plant and are so named but the way they have been processed (oxidized). White tea is the least oxidized and black tea is the most oxidized. Oolong is partially oxidized so the color and the flavor exist in a range between black and green teas. Oolong leaves vary from shades of green to dark brown.

Oolong is richly aromatic with a range of complex, but smooth, floral flavors. The leaf color varies depending on the oxidation level and this also determines the flavors; lighter shades taste more floral. This complexity is making oolong grow in popularity, as this tea often produces the widest range of aromas and flavors.

How is Oolong Processed?

Processing of oolong tea is the most difficult and time-consuming of all four teas. A long standing tradition requires excellent craftsmanship and experience. It is vital that the leaves for oolong tea are picked on a clear morning. They should be picked as one bud and three leaves. The bud and leaves must then be placed in the sun to wither then dried indoors or under shade to encourage fermentation. It is imperative that the tea producers know when to stop fermenting. Then, on bamboo mats, the leaves are shaken so that they bruise, just slightly, on the edges.

This aspect of the processing is required to partially oxidize the leaves. After being shaken they are placed in the shade until they turn a little yellow. The entire process is repeated a few times. Once a certain level of oxidation is reached, the leaves are placed in high heat so they will not oxidize any further. They are then dried a final time, most often on charcoal. Before they are packaged, a tea master judges the quality. Once packaged, oolong can live a long time on the shelf because they contain much less moisture in their leaves than green and white teas.

Why Choose Oolong?

The tea plant contains multitudes of healthy ingredients such as antioxidants, and vitamins and minerals. These antioxidants, as well as other helpful ingredients such as fluoride and caffeine, are responsible for fighting heart disease and cancer, strengthening bones and teeth, raising metabolism, and improving mental cognition. But as research about the health benefits of teas arise, so do diet trends and misinformation. Recently oolong has been called the “slimming” tea. Although science has provided proof that tea speeds up metabolism, the truth is that all teas have those same qualities. If a person did nothing different except drink 2-4 cups of tea a day, they would lose about 7-8 lbs a year. Not bad, but not a miraculous diet drink.

Still, oolong tea is a great addition to a healthy diet as it, like all teas, has practically no calories, no sodium and no fat. Replacing poor drink choices such as soda and heavily cream-and-sugared coffee with tea is a wise alternative for health and well-being.

Many people just prefer oolong for the complexity and range of flavors. For those who like a tea without the heavy grassy flavor of green tea, but want a weaker black tea, oolong offers the perfect compromise.

The word chai literally means “tea” in Hindi, and the more commonly used word outside of the U.S. is masala tea. But even though the term chai tea is a little redundant, this hasn’t stopped the consumer demand for more. Chai is so popular in South Asia that street vendors selling the drink are a common sight. Black tea, milk, sugar, and select spices make up the key ingredients of Chai tea.

Traditionally, the making of chai tea is relatively time consuming, but with the growing popularity in the Western markets, convenience driven pre-brewed and pre-packaged chai mixes are now being sold regularly. Chai can be enjoyed hot or cold, with a variety of added flavors. As chai becomes more prevalent in coffee shops and cafes, people are experimenting with new additions such as vanilla, chocolate, or nutmeg. Chai tea has long been savored all over the world, especially India, and is now a favorite in the U.S.

How is Chai Made?

Traditional chai is made with fresh spices from an Asian or Indian market. Cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, a cardamom pod, and whole black or white pepper corns are ground into a powder. This powder is added to two parts half-and-half to three parts water and add ¼ inch of fresh, chopped ginger root. Use a strong black tea and brew over a low, simmering heat for up to an hour. Chai made this way typically has a caffeine level similar to coffee. Strain the spices and stir in a teaspoon of sugar. Add milk to desired taste. Chai tea is traditionally served hot and sweet because the sugar is needed to enhance the full flavors of the spices.

Organic Spiced Chai Tea

A lot of variations to this basic recipe are available online and in print. Substitutions on the basic ingredients are almost endless, too. Sugar can be substituted with honey, brown sugar, rice syrup or maple syrup. Whole milk can be substituted with soy milk or skim milk. Although nutmeg is a common favorite, give licorice or saffron a chance for a completely different flavor.

Like many teas, there are innumerable ways to enjoy this drink and finding the right balance for personal taste often takes a little experimenting with various spices and amounts.

Are There Any Health Benefits in Chai?

Chai tea is made using black tea, so the health benefits of black tea remain in the drink.  Black tea has antioxidants that help the body to eliminate free radicals from the body, thus fighting colds and the flu, heart disease, and even cancer. Other helpful ingredients such as fluoride and caffeine help to strengthen bones and teeth, and improve mental cognition.

Still, chai does contain milk and sugar making it a little less healthy of an option. This is perhaps the reason why some people are starting to drink chai with the spices, but without the milk and sugar, veering from the traditional form. That is just another one of the amazing things about tea—its versatility makes it a drink for all people at any time.

Stop by LeafSpa and check out their selection of yummy organic chai tea right now.

Ancient myths wrote about ambrosia and nectar as the drink of the gods. Was the word changed in translation over the centuries? Were they, perhaps, referring to green tea? Maybe green tea does not provide immortality, but the more you discover the health benefits contained in these leaves, the more you might wonder, is this the drink of the gods?

Om . . . organic green tea

Organic Green Tea Health Benefits

All teas contain important vitamins and minerals and high levels of antioxidants, but because green and white teas are processed and oxidized the least they contain the most nutrients and are the healthiest choices. The list of research is much longer than this article but here are just a few of the enormous health benefits available in green tea.

Prevent Heart Disease and Cancer

Perhaps the biggest advantage of drinking green tea is the way it fights against heart disease and cancers. High levels of antioxidants do a remarkable job of fighting free radicals (often linked to cancers) in the body, preventing them from damaging healthy cells.
Green tea also helps prevent heart disease and stroke by lowering bad cholesterol while maintaining good cholesterol levels. After heart attacks, green tea has been reported to prevent cell deaths and help the recovery of damaged heart cells.

Reduce Weight and Manage Sugar Levels

Green boosts your metabolism naturally by speeding up fat oxidation and raising thermogenesis (the rate at which calories are burned). It is suggested that these combinations improve endurance when exercising. 70 calories can be burned in just one day by simply drinking green tea. Although that might not sound like a lot, one simple change translates to losing 7 pounds in one year. Green tea also helps with weight loss by preventing the movement of glucose in fat cells. This improvement in lipid and glucose metabolism, prevents sharp increases in blood sugar level.

Protect Skin and Bones

Those same amazing antioxidants fighting free radicals are protecting the skin from wrinkling and skin aging as well as fighting those cells responsible for skin cancer.
Because green tea ingredients block enzymes that destroy cartilage, it works as a preventative to rheumatoid arthritis. The anti-inflammatory agents reduce inflammation in those already sore and swollen areas. Not only are antioxidants fighting for bones and skin, but fluoride, also found in green tea, fights against bacteria that lead to cavities and bad breath. Bones, teeth, and skin grow stronger with each sip of tea.

Improve Daily Life

If you start each day with a cup of coffee consider switching to green tea. Green tea contains low levels of caffeine (about one-third of an average cup of coffee) but the caffeine is released gradually. This means you can drink green tea most of the day and maintain a steady alertness without the ups and downs of higher levels of caffeine from sodas and coffees. And as you do, unlike the sugar and artificial ingredients loaded in soda and coffee, green tea is providing positive effects on your health. The antioxidants (specifically polyphenols and flavenoids) as well as the Vitamin C in green tea will boost your immune system to help fight against infections, colds, and flus.

As if it were not enough to know that what you are drinking is not only good for you but tastes good, too, here is one more reason to drink green tea: L-thiamine, an amino acid in green tea, is a natural mood enhancer and relieves stress. That’s something we all could use in a daily cup. Isn’t it nice to know how easy it is to get it?

Start gaining all of these benefits today by visiting LeafSpa for their selection of organic green tea.

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No matter what traditional producers try to convince you of, organic produce tastes better.  Not only do organic fruits and vegetables out perform regular produce in taste tests, they’ve also been proven scientifically to be sweeter and more firm.  Conventional producers tend to use breeds of crops that are genetically modified to look good, but they lose flavor in the process.  Organic produce also has a better taste because they are grown in optimum soil conditions and don’t have chemicals in them to mask the natural flavor.

Organic produce contains more vitamins and essential nutrients.  Tests have shown organic products to have significantly more substances that promote many aspects of a healthy life from cancer prevention to relieving the symptoms of PMS.  Eating the recommended daily amounts of organic fruits and vegetables gives you nutrients levels even a multivitamin can’t match.  This keeps your system functioning at optimum levels and makes you feel great.

Organic fruits and vegetables are not grown using unnatural chemicals.  The obvious benefit of this is that your food has less harmful chemicals.  This not only helps protects you from chemicals that can cause cancer, heart disease, and even promote Alzheimer’s; it also helps protect the environment from these chemicals as well.  When harmful pollutants are put into the soil, they offset the natural balance.  They can also work their way into streams, rivers, lakes, oceans, and underground water supplies; polluting the environment and possibly contaminating drinking water.

If you want the benefits of increased food safety, but cringe when you see the higher price tag; you can cut the costs by only buying certain organic produce.  Different fruits and vegetables actually contain differing amount of harmful chemicals.  Produce that is more important to purchase organically includes: winter squash, green beans, grapes, spinach, potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries, peaches, apples, pears, and cantaloupe.  Other types of produce have lower levels and are safer to eat when grown conventionally. 

Production of organic products also includes a pledge to help conserve valuable natural resources.  These producers conserve water by using less irrigation; they conserve soil by taking measures to prevent runoff; they also conserve valuable energy sources by working the land less and selling their food locally.  By not using dangerous chemicals and by keeping natural non-farmed areas, organic producers also help to maintain wildlife biodiversity.  The main goal of an organic farmer is to grow their crop without taking from the local environment.  That way, the land will be available for future generations to farm.

Another lesser known benefit of organic produce is research.  Many organic farmers perform research experiments on their own time to try to improve their methods.  By buying organic produce, you are actually helping to improve yields and environmental safety for future organic farmers. 

Stop drinking tea with synthetic pesticides and drink organic tea exclusively.