Allergy Relief Tea | Plant Medicine

I love hot lemon water with ginger, cinnamon, cloves and honey. I make it throughout the cold months just to keep warm and to keep illness away. If I unfortunately do get sick (which is super rare) this really helps me to get more comfortable. Most people think of this lemon drink as something to take for the flu or the cold. However, we can take this drink straight into allergy season.

Fortunately, I don’t suffer from seasonal allergies. But I think this drink could help others that do! Some of the ingredients taken overtime will help reduce your symptoms. They will also help to strengthen your immune system and lessen your allergy symptoms overall. Try drinking 2-3 cups per day over one week. If you notice a positive effect, there is no reason why you can’t continue drinking this tonic for the duration of allergy season.

Allergy “Tea”

• 1-2 slices of lemon
• 4-5 slices of fresh ginger root*
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves*
• Boiling water
• 1 table spoon of Raw local honey

* you can vary the amount of ginger depending on the level of spicy you want. But, more spicy warmth can help to open things up.

** Some people are very sensitive to cloves. You’ll want to use enough to gain a numbing effect and that’s it. Cloves taken in large quantities can cause stomach cramps (cloves are used in large quantities to remove intestinal parasites). But you’ll want some cloves in your drink otherwise you won’t have the numbing effect.

Add all ingredients to your mug EXCEPT the honey. I like to muddle the lemon and ginger a bit to help all the goodness release. Add your boiling water. Let it “steep” for 3-4 minutes then add the honey. Never add honey to boiling water- the very high temperature makes all the helpful things in honey less effective.

So let’s break down the plant medicine of this drink. While all of these ingredients are helpful for flu/colds as well, I’m sticking to benefits for allergies today.

Warm water helps to loosen and thin mucus. So if you have a lot of that going on it helps to move things along and clear it all out making it a little easier to breathe. Warm water is also soothing on swollen tissues. It can also help calm the cough.

Lemons are full of vitamin c which helps to strengthen the immune system, in turn helping with allergies.

Ginger is a very powerful anti inflammatory ingredient. It’s also a bit spicy, the spicy warmth does help to open things up.

Cloves reduce inflammation and work as an expectorant for mucus. But the best thing about cloves is the soothing effect they have on dry scratchy throats. Many people use clove oil to numb toothaches! Cloves will numb your throat slightly, taking the edge off the dry scratchy feeling that comes with allergies.

Raw Honey. If you have a very mild case of allergies due to pollen you might be able to use raw honey to help with your symptoms. While there isn’t a ton of science to back this claim, raw honey form your local area contains pollen from plants that could be causing you’re allergies. By dosing yourself with small amounts of pollen, over time your body gets used to the pollen and stops over reacting. While the allergy shots are proven more effective, it doesn’t hurt to try the honey method first to see if works for you. But again the honey has to be raw and from YOUR area. I consume a lot of local, raw honey…I eat honey everyday… and I never have allergy problems. While I understand that this doesn’t mean it’s true for everyone, maybe it’s possible that it’s because my body has gotten used to all the pollen from the honey. Even if honey hasn’t been scientifically proven to reduce allergies, honey has been proven as more effective than cough syrup to calm your cough. In fact, cough syrup is rarely prescribed anymore because it just doesn’t work. And don’t forget that this tea is not suitable for children under 1 as infants should not be given honey.