A Haitian Treasure: "Tensyon" Tea

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It's been a minute since I've done one of these but I'm back with a really cool project! If you've been following this blog for a while, you know that I am currently studying Naturopathic medicine, a holistic type of medicine that looks at the whole person and aims to treat by natural and low force means. In addition to taking all the standard medical science classes, we take many other holistic oriented classes like Homeopathy, Nutrition, Physical Medicine, and Botanical Medicine. 

Botanical medicine has been super cool and enjoyable for me, and has given me the tools to learn how to create medicine from plants, which is such a gift. If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen the dozens of preparations I've made in the past few weeks!

Since you already know I'm in love with all things Haiti, I had to try to make something inspired by and dedicated to Haiti. :)

This is just the beginning!

Why I chose this tea:

Tea is a really important part of Haitian culture and there are dozens of leaves that we Haitians commonly use. I was struck by a particular sample that my mom gave to me a few months ago, and did some research on it. Included in the tea are melis (lemon balm), oumarin (rosemary), and kowosol (soursop).  Interestingly enough, this is a common tea for reducing tensyon. Tensyon is a non-descript word, literally translating to "tension", but is usually used in reference to emotional tension or "physiological tension" seen in diseases like hypertension and diabetes- both increasingly common diseases in the Haitian community....likely due to "lifestyle".... which is of course tied to structural violence, poverty, globalization, etc. The Anthropologist in me can go on and on....