Serving size: varies • Estimated time: 10 minutes • Optional equipment: tea infuser or cheesecloth
This year looks pretty different in many ways, but the holidays still mean that more sweet treats and full-figured meals are on our tables. To help your stomach cope with the added richness (and quantity!) of the celebratory eats, we offer a tasty after-meal brew. The featured ingredients in this tea help support the digestive process, ease bloating, and soothe upset stomachs. Whole chamomile, which can be found online via trusted vendors or your local health food shop, can help relieve abdominal gas and cramps. We also add fennel seed to assist in relaxing the intestinal muscles, as well as relieve constipation, lemongrass to help ease cramps, ginger to warm the GI tract and soothe bloating, and lastly cardamom to balance an upset stomach.
The ingredients are listed in parts so you can pick a measure (teaspoon, tablespoon, half-cup, etc.) and scale the recipe for the batch you want to make, whether that be for a few servings or an extra robust pot of tea. For example, 1 teaspoon of chamomile, fennel seeds, and lemongrass would call for ½ tsp ginger root and ¼ tsp cardamom pods to make roughly 2 - 3 cups.
Ingredients
- 2 parts chamomile
- 2 parts fennel seed
- 2 parts lemongrass (fresh or dried)
- 1 part ginger root, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1/2 parts cardamom pods
Instructions
Combine your ingredients in your tea infuser or wrap them up in a double layer of natural cheesecloth. Pour water just off the boil over the tea mixture. Cover and allow the ingredients to steep for 10 minutes. You can either keep you ingredients in the infuser or strain if they’re floating loosely. Pour and enjoy!
