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So I consider myself a pretty experienced tea drinker. And this isn’t even close to the first article I’ve been assigned to write on some various obscure forms of tea, but until today I had never heard of rooibos tea before. And as such, I’m guessing you probably hadn’t heard about it until recently either. That’s probably what brought you to this article in the first place. Somebody probably recently told you about all the amazing health benefits rooibos tea has and you decided to check the old internet machine and find out if they were telling the truth. Well good news everybody! They were (probably) telling the truth! Rooibos tea is packed full with a myriad of different health benefits that will make you wonder why it’s taken so long for you to hear about it. Check out the article below if you want to find out how drinking a cup of rooibos tea can have a profound impact on your life.
As I mentioned, I had never heard of rooibos tea before being assigned to write about it. And in my research I discovered a few things about it very quickly. The first thing being what the heck rooibos even means in the first place. (It means “red bush” in Afrikaans). The plant itself is native to South Africa, and it is called that because it is a reference to the deep rich crimson color of the tea leaves themselves. But who cares about what the tea looks like? Your eyes aren’t what really enjoy a glass of tea so I’m sure you want to know what rooibos tea tastes like. Well you're in luck, because that is the next thing I learned in my research.
Rooibos tea is renowned for its sweet, almost nutty flavor. With many people comparing it favorably to hibiscus teas. It has also been described as having classic sweet hints of flavors like caramel and vanilla. And there is often a mild smoky essence to its flavor profile that can be loosely likened to the flavor one experiences from a rich tobacco.
Well this is where you are in luck. Even If you are the kind of person who drinks tea for its health benefits instead of its flavor (I mean I’ll personally never understand that since I was raised on my mother’s Southern style sweet tea but hey, to each their own) then rooibos tea could very well be for you as well. Rooibos tea, like most teas, is packed full of antioxidants. And I have explained antioxidants so many times when explaining why tea is healthy for you that it’s hard to keep it original, but I’ll try my best.
In short, there are molecules in your body called free radicals that have an uneven electron distribution. Because of this they are highly reactive. So while they are pretty harmless when they are just floating through your bloodstream, when they make contact with body cells, they have a chemical reaction because of their uneven electron count. Now your body produces its own antioxidants to fight these free radicals, but there is still plenty of damage caused that it can prevent on its own. See, the great thing about antioxidants is that they too are a special type of molecule. When an antioxidant comes into contact with a free radical, it is able to detonate one of the free radicals electrons. Thus bringing it back to an even distribution of electrons and making it much less reactive, and therefore more stable. That is where antioxidants get their name from. They are compounds that have an ability to prevent oxidation from occurring. And this in turn means that, although it’s impossible to stop all damage from every free radical in your body, consuming antioxidants on a regular basis can lead to a substantial decrease in the amount of oxidation that is occurring and the number of free radicals that are reactive in the first place.
Well there are actually a bunch of other benefits you will get from drinking rooibos tea. There’s really more than I have room to list and explain in this post alone, but this list should give you a pretty good idea.
The antioxidants that rooibos tea have are a special type called polyphenols. Polyphenols are a chemical compound that allows plant life to deal with stressors in their environment. When humans consume this special type of antioxidant they see a decrease in how much inflammation is occurring in their body. And this is huge. Because although maybe nothing is inflamed too badly, lowering the level of inflammation across your body as a whole can have a drastic effect on your feeling of well-being and your mood. Not to mention reducing inflammation helps prevent the onset of inflammation related illnesses like arthritis.
Rooibos tea naturally causes the air passageways in your lungs to open and dilate. This obviously causes an increase in the amount of airflow coming into your lungs. And as long as your lungs are working correctly, this means that they are going to be able to pull more oxygen from the air than they would normally be able to. And since they can get more oxygen from the air, they can give more oxygen to your blood, and then your blood can give more oxygen to your muscles. Which is, you know, one of their most important fuel sources.
Just like the anti-inflammatory effects of rooibos, this isn’t going to be anything rustic or profound, but it is enough to make a difference. And when you combine the pain relieving nature of rooibos anti-inflammatory properties, with its ability to help provide every cell in your body with more oxygen, you have a pretty serious combination.
Rooibos tea naturally contains high levels of important vitamins and minerals like iron, calcium, potassium, copper, magnesium, manganese, and zinc. It’s almost like drinking a multivitamin every time you have a cup of it. I take a handful of vitamins every morning and it turns out I could have just been drinking tea this whole time. Who knew?
Rooibos' high levels of calcium manganese and fluoride improve both the strength of your teeth as well as their overall health.
The high levels of zinc help fight signs of premature aging such as wrinkles.
And the combination of zinc, calcium, copper, and potassium helps keep your hair look healthy and stylish by providing the strands of hair with some of their fundamental building blocks. This helps keep the hair not only healthier, but also stronger.
While many green, black, and white teas might contain caffeine, it turns out that red tea does not. The nice thing about that is that you can enjoy rooibos tea anytime day or night. It won’t keep you up all night or give you anxiety fueled panic attacks. And while that is necessarily a health benefit, it certainly isn’t a detriment.
Like I said at the start of this, I had never heard of rooibos tea before I needed to write this article, but by the time I was done, I was honestly dying to try a cup. So I’ll definitely be keeping my eyes out the next time I’m at the tea shop. I learned a lot about this unique red tea that I never knew before. I hope you learned as much reading it as I did writing it for you. But please remember, no tea, not rooibos or any other one, is a suitable replacement for legitimate medicines. So don’t rely on tea in place of your prescriptions, follow your physician's instructions. But, when you are done following those instructions, there’s nothing wrong with kicking back and flooding your body with water, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. The worst thing that’ll happen is that your inflammation will go down and your skin and hair will both come out looking healthier. So as far as downsides go, those are pretty hard to beat.
