Chrysanthemum tea (Chinese: 菊花茶; pinyin: júhuā chá) is a flower-based tisane made from chrysanthemum flowers of the species Chrysanthemum morifolium or Chrysanthemum indicum, which are most popular in East Asia. To prepare the tea, chrysanthemum flowers (usually dried) are steeped in hot water (usually 90 to 95 degrees Celsius after cooling from a boil) in either a teapot, cup, or glass; often rock sugar is also added, and occasionally also wolfberries. The resulting drink is transparent and ranges from pale to bright yellow in color, with a floral aroma. In Chinese tradition, once a pot of chrysanthemum tea has been drunk, hot water is typically added again to the flowers in the pot (producing a tea that is slightly less strong); this process is often repeated several times. Chrysanthemum tea was first drunk during the Song Dynasty (960–1279). (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysanthemum_tea)

The weather is hot and why not have a cup or a glass of chrysanthemum tea to cool you off.

WHY THIS DRINK

There are lots of reasons that you should consider drinking chrysanthemum tea. Among the reasons are:

• a natural coolant to lower your body heat;
• It can assist in the treatment of acnes, pimples, toothache, headache, throbbing nerves in the gum;
• rich in Vitamin C and help to relieve heaviness of head during cold and provide relief in sinusitis discomfort;
• ability to lower cholesterol level;
• detoxification of liver;
• ease digestion after a heavy meal of greasy foods;
• assists in treatment of block arteries and coronary artery disease;
• providing relief to sore throat, redness, itchiness and dryness in eyes；
• It has lots of minerals from calcium to magnesium to potassium and vitamins like Vitamin B1, Vitamin C etc.

This drink is extremely easy to prepare but some friends of mine have misconceptions that the preparation troublesome. They would rather pay SGD1-2 for a glass of or SGD0.50-SGD1 for a tin or packet of chrysanthemum tea.

Therefore, I have decided to share the steps with readers who have never prepare this tea before and assure you that it is not troublesome at all to prepare some chrysanthemum tea for your family.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Dried chrysanthemum, brown rock sugar and water. You can buy both the dried chrysanthemum and brown rock sugar at the Chinese herbal shop.

PREPARATION STEPS

Get ready some dried chrysanthemum and wash away the dirt. Put these washed chrysanthemums  into a pot filled with water. Boiled for about 10 minutes. Add in rock sugar and boiled for another 5 minutes. Sieved and serve hot or cold. If you found that the chrysanthemum tea is too concentrated or too sweet, just add in some more hot water.

Note: Don’t boiled the chrysanthemum too long because it can then become very bitter.  You can add in some more water and re-boil the flower for the second time. After it boiled for 5 minutes, add additional rock sugar to taste.  For this boiling, the color should be lighter and the taste is less concentrated.

VARIATIONS

The above method is the method that we used to cook in Singapore or Malaysia. Another method is to hot water and mix steep for about 5 minutes. However, the drinks will become less concentrated. If you used the mix steep method, you can also consider add in some wolfberries, ginseng and licorice.

source: www.blucraneacupuncture.blogspot.com                source: http://boldcathybold.blogspot.sg

CONCLUSIONS

Chinese (in fact other Asians like Korean and Japanese) believed that chrysanthemum flowers possess medicinal values and an excellent “cooling” herbs. Constant drinking of this flower tea will help to improve immune systems, liver detoxification, fat cleansing and cool down your body temperature. As such, knowing how to make this herbal tea will definitely be a preferred alternative when compared to purchase the packet or tin drinks in the grocery stores.

Happy reading.