Digestive tea

This is a great tea to have after dinner (or lunch), especially if you feel that you have overindulged a little and now feel a little uncomfortable and/or bloated. It’s easy to make and the ingredients can be found in any supermarket or health food shop.

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp dried peppermint leaves or one teabag peppermint tea (if you have fresh mint in the garden, use about 5-10 leaves of that)

• 1 tsp cumin seeds

• 1 heaped tsp grated/minced fresh ginger

• 1/2 - 1 tsp honey (ideally Manuka honey) - optional

• 250ml boiling water

Methods

• Place the peppermint leaves,cumin seeds and ginger into a loose tea infuser, and add the infuser to a mug. Alternatively, you could add all ingredients straight into themug but you will then need to strain the drink through a fine sieve before drinking.

• Pour the boiling water over the infuser (or directly over the ingredients) and let it steep for 10minutes. Remove the infuser or strain through a sieve and enjoy.

Notes:

• Cumin seeds are commonly used in Ayurvedic medicine to treat any digestive discomfort. Ginger is anti-inflammatory, naturally soothes the stomach and can help reduce the production of stomach acid (and thus helps with indigestion). Peppermint is often used for acute and chronic digestive complaints, especially when cramps are present.

• Ginger Ginger tea can also be enjoyed without the peppermint and cumin, either for digestive complaints or to help provide relief from chronic coughs. Adding honey, in particular Manuka honey, to a ginger tea will provide some further cough relief as it's very soothing to the throat, which can help to relieve cough symptoms.