Give your Valentine a tin of Love & Laughter
If you care about the health of your Valentine, a tin of Love and Laughter, an herbal rose tea, made by Biron Herbal Teas, may be the best gift you can give. Their Love and Laughter blend is a slightly sweet vanilla tea that contains whole dried rose petals and rose hips, two beautiful herbs with possible, powerful healing qualities.
Roses are often the flower used to express love and forgiveness, however studies have the shown the radical anti-oxidant activity of rose tea is higher than that of green tea, although rose tea doesn’t contain caffeine like green tea (1), and the compounds in rose hips called galactolipids may help prevent cartilage breakdown in your joints (2).
Throughout centuries, roses have been admired for healing properties along with their beauty and scent. Roses were a staple in monastery healing gardens and as early as the first century, Pliny the Elder, a Roman author, naturalist, and philosopher, recorded 32 different medicinal uses for roses. (3) Rosewater was used throughout the China, the Middle East and Europe for not only cooking and perfumes, but for controlling bleeding, eye infections, and upset stomachs. (4, 5) Modern studies are following suit, proving that the beauty of the rose may not just be in its scent and flower, but inside the petal’s themselves.
A study done several years ago, by the Journal of Food Science, concluded, “that dried rose petals may be used for preparing antioxidant-rich caffeine-free beverages, either separately or in combination with other herbal materials.” (2) Other studies have confirmed this. In 2007, The Journal of Chemical Sciences published a study touting Rose as an excellent medicinal herb based on its abundance of phenolics compounds, which are reported to help prevent cardiovascular diseases as well as osteoporosis and possibly even cancer. (6) While a study published in "Molecular Aspects of Medicine" in 2003 found that rosehip tea is a significant source of lycopene, an antioxidant that has been linked with reduced risk of heart disease and cancer. (7)
Who knew such a beautiful flower could hold so much healing potential. Biron Teas, that’s who, and that’s why they included rose petals and rose hips as primary ingredients in their Love and Laughter Tea. A tea designed to lift and nourish the sprit and soul.
References:
1. Yakov Vinokur, Victor Rodov, Natalie Reznick, Genady Goldman, Batia Horev, Nakdimon Umiel and Haya (2006). Rose Petal Tea as an Antioxidant-rich Beverage: Cultivar Effects, Friedman, Journal of Food Science, Volume 71, Issue 1, pages S42–S47, January 2006.
2. Joseph Schwager, Ulrich Hoeller, Swen Wolfram and Nathalie Richard (2011). Rose hip and its constituent galactolipids confer cartilage protection by modulating cytokine, and chemokine expression, BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2011, 11:105.
3. Kathleen Halloran (2009). Herb Garden Design Plans: A 21st Century Healing Garden. Mother Earth Living, June/July 2009.
4. Kolding, Winther K1, Rein E, Kharazmi A (1999). The anti-inflammatory properties of rose-hip. Inflammopharmacology, 7(1), 63-8.
5. Mohammad Hossein Boskabady, Mohammad Naser Shafei, Zahra Saberi, and Somayeh Amini (2011). Pharmacological Effects of Rosa Damascena. Iran J Basic Med Science, Jul-Aug, 2011; 14(4): 295–307.
6. Augustin Scalbert, Ian T Johnson, and Mike Saltmarsh (2005). Polyphenols: antioxidants and beyond, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2, 3.
7. Böhm V1, Fröhlich K, Bitsch R (2003). Rosehip -- a "new" source of lycopene?, Molecular Aspects of Medicine. Dec, 2003;24(6):385-9.
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