History of Herbal Tea

• Herbal tea was consumed by ancient Indians, Sumerians, Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and people in the Middle East.
• In India, the ancient Ayurveda system used herbal remedies.
• Medieval Europe used the traditional herbal knowledge of Greeks and Romans.
• In recent times, herbal tea has again acquired great popularity for its obvious health benefits.

Plants have been used for medicinal purposes for as long as history has been recorded. China, India, Egypt, and Assyria appear to have been the places which cradled the use of herbs, but herbalism was common in Europe by medieval times.

Despite the progress in orthodox medicine, interest in alternative medicine, including herbalism, is on the increase in the West-and for 80% of the world herbal medicine is still the only kind to which ordinary person's ready access has.

A great variety of plants are used for medicinal treatments. Either the dried plant, or a specific part of it (root, leaves, fruits, flowers, seeds), is formulated into suitable preparations compressed as tablets or made into pills, used to make infusions (teas), extracts, tinctures, etc., or mixed with excipients to make lotions, ointments, creams, etc.

Activities of herbal medicines are often described in very general terms such as carminative, laxative, demulcent, antitussive, expectorant, sedative, antiseptic, or astringent.