Table of Contents
Who uses Labrador tea?
People take Labrador tea for sore throat, chest congestion, coughs, lung infections, and other chest ailments. They also take it for diarrhea, kidney problems, joint and muscle pain (rheumatism), headache, and cancer. Women use it to cause an abortion or treat “female disorders.”
Is Labrador tea edible?
Uses as an Edible Wild Plant Labrador tea is aptly named for its edible use and can be made into a tea served hot or iced. It is caffeine free.
What does Labrador tea smell like?
There are some foods that I like to forage for the simple pleasure their scent brings. One of those is labrador tea. Walking in a muskeg area with boots sinking into the uneven ground, a warm day in the fall is full of a lemony odor that is warm and inviting.
Is Labrador tea a narcotic?
Labrador tea has narcotic properties. If taken in concentrations that are too high, it can cause symptoms of intoxication that can lead to paralysis and death. If Labrador tea should be consumed, take only in small doses with weak concentrations.
How do you identify Labrador tea?
Labrador tea is easily recognized when in flower in the spring, with clusters of small white flowers at the tops of the stems. The flowers have small stamens sticking upwards. The dark green leaves often droop away from the flowers, and are identifiable by rusty brown hairs on their undersides.
How much Labrador tea is safe?
Some Elders recommend drinking one cup of this tea per day for good health. Other people include the root of the plant to make a more concentrated medicinal drink.
Can you grow Labrador tea?
Despite being thought of as a bog plant, Labrador tea is an excellent shrub for moist acid soils in the garden. Basically, anywhere you can grow rhododendrons, you can grow Labrador tea, although the tea plant is much hardier than a rhodo.
How often can you drink Labrador tea?
What does Labrador tea look like?
How do you pick a Labrador tea?
Pick the old leaves (or the flower clusters) to infuse as a tea. Be careful not to confuse sheep laurel with Labrador tea, as the former looks similar but is toxic. Make sure the leaves you pick are woolly on the underside, as sheep laurel’s leaves are hairless.
Does Labrador tea make you high?
People use bog Labrador tea for sore throat, chest congestion, coughs, lung infections, diarrhea, joint and muscle pain (rheumatism), and many other conditions, but there is no good scientific evidence to support these uses. In foods, bog Labrador tea is used as a beverage or to make beer more intoxicating.
Are there any animal studies on green tea?
There is evidence from in vitro and animal studies on the underlying mechanisms of green tea catechins and their biological actions. There are also human studies on using green tea catechins to treat metabolic syndrome, such as obesity, type II diabetes, and cardiovascular risk factors.
What is the name of the plant that makes Labrador tea?
Ledum latifolium, an earlier name for Rhododendron groenlandicum. Labrador tea is a common name for the three closely related plant species and the name of an herbal tea made from the plants:
How is Labrador tea used to spice meat?
Others use Labrador tea to spice meat by boiling the leaves and branches in water and then soaking the meat in the decoction . During the eighteenth century, German brewers used R. tomentosum while brewing beer to make it more intoxicating, but it became forbidden because it led to increased aggression.
What kind of toxicity does Labrador tea have?
Toxicity occurs due to terpenoid ledol found in all Labrador tea species. R. groenlandicum has the lowest toxicity due to lower levels of ledol. Grayanotoxins are also present, but few lethal human cases of poisoning due to grayanotoxins in Labrador tea have been documented.