A warming carminative infusion built to settle a bloated, restless gut. Sweet anise and fennel meet the heat of fresh ginger, then chamomile and mint fold in to relax the belly and quiet the nerves. It is a soft, herbaceous cure for a heavy stomach that soothes as much as it digests.
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4 compounds carry this recipe. Here is what each one does and, where we have it, what it actually looks like.
The licorice-sweet aromatic of anise and fennel; it relaxes intestinal spasms and releases trapped gas, doing most of the tea's digestive work.
The bite of fresh ginger; it stimulates gastric motility and eases nausea, coaxing a sluggish stomach back into rhythm.
A gentle constituent of chamomile that calms inflamed gut lining and eases tension, lending the tea its quieting, calming close.
The intensely sweet saponin of licorice root; it soothes the stomach lining and rounds the brew, deepening its sweetness without sugar.
Anise, fennel and sliced ginger simmer in 500 ml of water for 3 minutes to draw out their oils. Then the heat goes off, the chamomile, dried mint and licorice go in, and the pot steeps for about 4 minutes before straining. Three ingredients are cooked, three only steeped. The Journal's note on why arak turns white describes anise oil as dominated by one compound, trans-anethole, at eighty to ninety-five per cent, and fennel shares the flavour, so the cup's sweet, licorice-like note is largely one molecule. The licorice adds sweetness without sugar.
The name promises gas relief, and the evidence is of the traditional kind. The Journal's note on anise records the European Medicines Agency's monograph, which recognises anise for mild spasmodic digestive complaints such as bloating and flatulence, at 1 to 3.5 grams of seed in 150 ml of boiling water three times a day, for no more than two weeks. The Journal's note on chamomile adds that the 2015 EU monograph lists the flower as traditional use too, a category resting on long habit rather than trials. In two trials described in the Journal's note on bloating, 1.2 grams of ginger sped gastric emptying and changed no symptom. The same note quotes a Barcelona group's summary of bloating: the problem does not seem to be too much gas, but abnormal responses to gas.
Strain after the steep and treat it as an occasional pot; the library pairs it with the Sweet Digestive Tea. The recipe's own caution is the licorice. The EU's Scientific Committee on Food set 100 milligrams of glycyrrhizinic acid a day for regular consumption, counted across every source, and glycyrrhizin pushes potassium down and blood pressure up, so skip it with hypertension or diuretics. The Journal's note on licorice reports a Dutch survey in which four of 33 herbal tea brands exceeded 100 milligrams per litre of prepared drink, the highest at 450. The anise monograph does not recommend anise under twelve, in pregnancy or while breastfeeding.
These notes are educational, not medical advice. Read the terms
This recipe is part of a set: follow the thread through the blends it uses and what it's served with.
The belly that swells by evening usually holds barely more gas than it did at breakfast. What the CT scans found, which trials a kiwifruit has actually moved, why the yogurt is allowed and the honey is not, and the enzyme claims that do not survive the stomach.
German chamomile flowers are white and gold. Distil them and the oil runs ink-blue, from a molecule the living plant never contains. What is in the flower, what a cup of tea actually carries, and why the trials that made chamomile's name mostly did not use tea.
Sweet taste runs through a single receptor that will accept a sugar, a protein or a synthetic molecule with equal enthusiasm. Which is how anise tastes sweet with no sugar in it. The famous number attached to that fact, though, traces back to an uncited sentence, and the measurement behind it could not have been made.
