Immunity Building Vitamin C Herbal Tea

Make an easy and homemade herbal tea full of vitamin c with this easy and delicious recipe.

This simple to pull together drink uses herbs you already have growing, can easily forage, and eaven buy at your local health food store for a tasty and immune boosting tea.

Rose hips, hibiscus roselles, and a bit of spice make for a beautifully colored and delicious herbal tea that can support the body and soul during cold and flu season.

Why These Herbs?

Both hibiscuses and rose hips are known to be high in Vitamin C. They tend to be frugal, natural options that are easy to keep in our home herbal medicine cabinets. And perhaps, best of all – they tend to be delicious and not at all ‘medicinal’ in flavor making them easy, even delightful to drink.

Rose Hips

Rosehips have 426 milligrams of Vitamin C for every 100 grams. Granted, your cup of tea does not have 100 grams of vitamin C but the daily recommended amount of vitamin c is just 75 milligrams for women and 90 for men. If you eat a fairly healthy diet, you probably get enough in fresh fruits, vegetables, and fermented foods. The extra bit in this tea will only help to increase it a bit and perhaps give you a bit of boost during times of illness and stress.

Roses and therefore the rosehips tend to grow in most climates, making them an easy herbal tea to grow or forage and keep on hand.

Do make sure to clean the rosehips of the irritating seeds and hairs before drying or strain very (incredibly) well. Those small seeds and hairs can cause many issues for some folks so its best to remove them.

Hibiscus Roselles

Hibiscus is again high in vitamin C and many other vitamins and minerals making it something wonderful to help your body fight off infections and support yourself in times of high stress.

Hibiscus tends to grow in warmer climates and is a lovely edible flower to add to your garden if you have the right growing climate.

If like me, you don’t have the best growing climate for it, hibiscus tends to be great frugal and can often be found easily in grocery and health food stores to make this and other teas.

Cloves

To give the tea a bit of warming flavor and even more Vitamin C, add a bit of cloves.

Cloves are also easy to find, maybe already in your pantry, and add a delightful and warming spicy note.

Don’t have or like cloves? Try some whole allspice berries, instead. They do have some vitamin C and the flavor is quite nice.

How to Use

Stress takes its toll on our bodies. Quite literally stress depletes our bodies of Vitamin C. This depletion can lead to weakened immune systems and illness. Drink a cup of this tea at the end of a stressful day to replenish the body’s Vitamin C needs.

Vitamin C can shorten the duration of colds and flus. Drink a cup or two of this tea a day when a cold begins to settle. Continue drinking until the illness passes.

Precautions: There is no need to drink more than a cup or two of this tea a day. Too much vitamin C can cause diarrhea and even headaches so keep it simple. Also, of course, avoid if allergic and always seek the advice of a trained health professional.