What is Red Clover Tea and Its Benefits?
Red clover tea is made from the wild flowering red clover plant and has a number of important uses and benefits in various types of traditional medical treatments. Red clover tea may be used to help treat a variety of common symptoms, including asthma and whooping cough.
While you should be sure to consult a doctor before using red clover tea or any herbal supplement to treat medical symptoms, let’s look at some of the benefits of red clover tea for your health and your kitchen.
What is Red Clover?
Red clover, also known as Trifolium pratense, is a familiar "weed" found across much of North America. You may have noticed red clover growing in your yard during spring, summer, and early fall months since it has a blooming season from May to September. Red clover belongs to the same family as peas and beans.
What are the Benefits of Red Clover?
Red clover has a number of important benefits. While there isn’t substantial evidence to back up red clover’s use in medicine, you may try it to help alleviate a variety of symptoms, but remember, always check with a doctor first!
Here are some potential benefits of red clover tea:
Help Alleviate Menopausal Symptoms and Improve Hormonal Balance
Menopause often brings symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats. Red clover can help alleviate many of these symptoms, including vaginal dryness, anxiety, and depression. Some premenopausal women have also noted that consuming red clover can help with overall hormonal balance, increasing menstrual regularity, and decreasing symptoms of PMS.
Using Red Clover Tea Can Help With Fever, Inflamed lungs, and Bronchitis
Since it is both an expectorant and an antispasmodic, it can help decrease symptoms of cough and various inflammatory conditions, including bronchitis.
Red Clover Tea Can Help Enhance Bone Health
Red clover contains isoflavones, a phytoestrogen that creates the same effect as estrogen in the body. As a result, some women have experienced a decrease in osteoporosis risk when consuming increased isoflavones and phytoestrogens. Since red clover is high in these compounds, consuming it could enhance bone health.
Improve Heart Health
Red clover may help increase good cholesterol and decrease bad cholesterol. While studies are not conclusive about these potential effects, postmenopausal women, in particular, may see an increase in overall heart health as a result of consuming red clover tea.
May Aid in Weight Loss
Some people have found that consuming red clover tea can help aid in weight loss. Studies do not clearly back up these claims, but anecdotal evidence has shown that red clover can help decrease appetite and inflammation in the body, which may make it easier to decrease excess weight.
Enhance Hair and Skin Health
Red clover tea may be a useful part of your beauty regimen. It can help increase skin elasticity, improving your natural glow to help you look and feel your best.
While red clover tea has a number of potential traditional medicinal uses, it's important to note that there is no scientific evidence for many of the claims made about red clover and its properties. Furthermore, you should never use red clover or any other supplement to treat any type of serious illness or symptom without consulting your doctor.
What Forms Can You Take Red Clover?
Red clover has a nutritionally complex makeup that contains a number of beneficial compounds. In general, it is recommended that you consume the entire red clover bud, generally as either an extract or tea, in order to improve your ability to absorb the valuable compounds within red clover.
You can choose to purchase premade tea or make your own. In some cases, you can also take red clover as a tincture, which you can make yourself from red clover blossoms or purchase from a reputable source.
How to Make Red Clover Tea
Some people may prefer to collect their own red clover outside. If you choose to gather red clover in the wild, make sure you are aware of potential pesticides, chemicals, or roadside pollution that may have impacted the clover, since you do not want to take in those substances as part of your tea. In general, you should harvest red clover early in the morning, when there is still some dew on the blossoms.
Place them in a basket or on a drying rack in a dark, warm, and ventilated location. Turn them frequently as they dry. Generally, it will take between one and two weeks for your clover to dry. Of course, if you do not want to wait for clover to dry on its own or it is out of season in your local area, you may choose to purchase already-dried red clover blossoms.
Ready to start brewing? Place 1 to 3 teaspoons of dried red clover blossoms in hot water—not boiling! Allow to steep for about 15 minutes. You may want to add honey or lemon juice to flavor your brew.
Drink up and enjoy!
