When I recently came down with shingles, I was looking for different ways to add licorice root to my diet and “invented” this iced tea, and it came out so delicious I am going to keep making it.
I wrote about the many health benefits of licorice in the Licorice Vanilla Bean Coconut Ice Cream recipe, but it bears repeating: Licorice is a strong anti-viral, and also has anti-inflammatory and anti-arthritic properties. It is great for sore throats, stomach problems (I often have some licorice root powder after overindulging at dinner during the holidays for example, to avoid heartburn that night) and supports the adrenal glands. Research has also shown that it can help with hot flashes and night sweats during menopause.
Now, the tea. I used black tea because I love it, and honestly need a bit of a caffeine boost in the mornings, but if you want to use green, white or red, definitely do. I haven’t tried that, so I can’t tell you how it will come out, but it never hurts to try.
Licorice is very sweet in itself, but I also added raw, local honey to my tea, both because I love the flavor, and because of its health benefits, since I was making this to help get rid of shingles. Raw honey is anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-bacterial, and contains lots of health-boosting enzymes, minerals and vitamins.
I use tea bags in this recpie, something I normally don’t do, but they work great for this
Ingredients
- Black Tea bags
- Licorice root
- Raw honey
Instructions
- Put three tea bags and as much licorice root as you want in your teapot. I used around 3 tablespoons of “shredded” licorice root for my teapot, which holds 48 oz. = 6 cups = 1 ½ liter
- Bring filtered water to a boil, turn it off, and as soon as it stops boiling, pour it over the tea and licorice. Let steep for 10 minutes, remove the tea bags and let the licorice sit for another 10 minutes
- Put honey in a glass bottle (as much as you like, I used about 2 tbsp for this amount of tea), pour over a little bit of the hot tea and swish it about until the honey dissolves. Add the rest of the tea, let it cool a bit, cover and put in the fridge. When it has cooled, pour a glass, add ice if you like (I prefer it without ice) and enjoy
Note: if you take certain medications, are pregnant, have high blood pressure or certain other medical conditions, you should not eat licorice root. Read this to make sure you’re not at risk before trying this recipe. Please also read the Terms & Conditions page of this site.
Where to buy
I get my licorice root from Mountain Rose Herbs, and they also have a great selection of teas and teapots. As for the honey, I buy mine directly from two different apiaries, one in Vermont, the other in Maine. I recommend buying from a local apiary, because raw honey can also help with pollen allergies, but it needs to contain pollen from where you live for that to work. And it’s always nice to support a local small business. 🙂
Trying to decide which tea to use? For a quick overview of a few different types, see my Mini Tea Tasting post.
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