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Combining health benefits of herbs with green tea
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Monday, 01 January, 2018, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Sanjay Kumar Gupta
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The growth in the consumption of green tea has been a major trend over the last 2-3 years, due to green tea’s substantial health benefits. Interestingly, the trend is now quickly being taken over by a new trend of herbal green teas with specific health theme.
Indian herbs are well known for their therapeutic values, and have extensive acceptance amongst all classes in India and abroad. Herbal green teas combine the health benefits of herbs and spice-based Ayurvedic formulations with green tea health benefits, targeting specific health or wellness aspects. Also, the body absorbs herbal extracts better in the form of warm tea, as against traditional capsules and tablets.
This new trend is primarily driven by the tea industry, the end-customer, as well as the traditional Ayurvedic companies. The major enabler behind this push is the Internet that has enabled the consolidation of an otherwise fragmented knowledge about herbs.
Different health effects
The wellness effects achieved depend on the specific herbs added to the green tea.
There are several kinds of herbs with different health effects. Garcenia, cinnamon and ginger are effective herbs for fat reduction; mint and triphala to aid digestion; chamomile or chamomile-lemongrass for relaxation; tulsi and cinnamon for immunisation and gymnema sylvester to counter diabetes. These are just a few of the herbs that can be consumed with green tea. These herbal green teas could potentially cover basic wellness aspects to chronic ailments and conditions like diabetes, blood pressure, cardiovascular, skin ageing, and cancer.
The herbal knowledge base which was until recently considered to be privy of a few, is now open for all to experiment with. Many young entrepreneurs have recently forayed into the tea industry, and found it convenient to innovate and expand into herbal blends. In addition to the health benefits, the blending of herbs comes handy as a mechanism to suppress the bitter taste of green tea.
Ayurvedic companies find it convenient to push their herbal dosages combined with green teas as people do not have to make any special effort to consume herbs as this gels well with the existing tea drinking habits of people. Also, people tend to take conventional Ayurvedic medicines in the form of tablets/capsules/syrups with the psychological feeling of being a ‘patient,’ and tend to give up as soon as they get better, or they do not see appropriate results in a short time-frame. Meanwhile, people adopt herbal teas as part of their daily routine, and continue for long as their lifestyle.
It works well for the consumers also as they can choose the appropriate herbal tea for their wellness consideration as well as taste. People are willing to pickup herbal teas for potential wellness factors even if they do not have a compelling faith in Ayurvedic medicines.
Taste is extremely important
The process of making herbal teas is not as easy as it may sound to be. Many herbs and spices have bitter taste. However, taste is not a consideration when Ayurvedic medicines are taken in the form of tablets and capsules. But taste is extremely important for herbal teas. Therefore, Ayurvedic formulations cannot be utilised in toto while blending with teas. All ingredients of these formulations are individually analysed for associated health benefit and taste. Bitter tasting ingredients are excluded, and suitable replacements are identified to ensure an acceptable taste. In addition, certain herbs and spices like cinnamon and licorice are added just to make tea tastier, and leave a good after-taste.
There are some issues in mixing green tea and herbs. Green tea should be brewed at 80°C for 2 minutes, while herbal teas are supposed to be brewed at 99°C for 5 minutes. The problem is that green tea becomes bitter if it is brewed like herbal tea, i.e., at higher temperatures or for a longer duration. So the blend has to be brewed the way pure green tea is brewed. But, this way the herbs remain underutilised.
One solution is to crush herbs into smaller pieces that would release their extracts faster. In this case, the green tea used would also have to be in dust or fanning form, to ensure homogeneity of the blend. Otherwise, the smaller herbal particles would sink to the bottom of the mixture. The problem with this approach is that green tea in dust or fanning form is inferior to whole leaf tea in terms of taste, aroma and health benefits.
A superior method of brewing herbal green tea is to use whole leaf green tea and herbs of matching size, while reducing the concentration of green tea to less than 50% of the mixture. This way the taste of the blend will be dominated by the taste of the herb. Such a blend should be brewed at a temperature and for a duration between that for green tea and herbal tea, i.e., at 85-90°C for around 3-4 mins, for the perfect cup of herbal green tea!
Kerala has a special role
Kerala has a special role to play in herbal tea story as Ayurveda is already a major industry in the region.
Many Ayurveda centres in Kerala are quite popular, and draw people from all over the world. Also, spice processing industry is primarily based at Kerala. Spices form an integral part of herbal formulations.
Herbal teas are packed in loose form, as well as in teabags. Due to the convenience of making a cup of tea, teabags command 80-85% of the market, even though the quality of loose tea is better which normally makes use of whole leaf grade tea. From the manufacturer point of view, it is quicker to launch loose packs requiring minimum capital investment.
From the sales and marketing point of view, people are more likely to search online for herbal green teas for their specific health needs. Only a few herbal teas with generic wellness themes (e.g., body immunity, slimming, detox, nutrition, relaxation, refreshing) are likely to be sold in the stores. Due to high cost associated with shelf space, retailers prefer to keep limited variety of products on display. On the contrary, online shopping platforms prefer to have large variety. Herbal green tea market is likely to offer a large variety of products.
The herbal tea industry is in nascent stage in India. There are limited number of companies experimenting with herbal teas. However, the growth is expected to be exponential. Green tea has seen a major traction over past 3-4 years. Herbal green teas are likely to replace green teas, and grow even more exponentially.
Herbal teas are gaining traction overseas also. Fruit and flower flavoured teas are quite popular in many European countries. These fruits and flowers add only to taste, whereas herbs and spices add to taste as well as health benefits. It is a matter of time when herbal teas would gain popularity overseas also.
India currently commands a reasonable market share (around US$5-6 billion) in tea. However, due to limited tea cultivation area, the growth of the sector would primarily come from value addition to finished product. The herbal market share is close to a billion US$, and has good potential to grow. Combining the two sectors offers a great opportunity to Indian economy, and also bring ancient herbal benefits and a healthy society at large.
(The author is owner of Budwhite Teas Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi. He can be contacted at sanjay.gupta@budwhitetea.com)
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