TeaChat

So I bought myself a pound of olive leaves (most of which i don't know what to do with as I had underestimated what a pound of olive leaves what actually look like) and I've been making tea out of it. Supposedly olive leaves are the new "cure-all" with an antioxidant power higher than anything else out there. Anyone familiar with the craze and do you think all these claims are true or not? As for now I just enjoy the taste of the tea, if the claims are true...great! If not...well it certainly can't hurt me.

antioxidants seem to be really overhyped lately if you ask me...but if you enjoy the taste of olive leaf tisane it shouldn´t hurt any to drink it.

anti-oxidants aren´t bad for you...but they´re not miracle cures either. I think the main thing with them is that traditional diets are higher in fresh fruits and vegetables than modern factory food diets so now a lot of people are deficient of things like anti-oxidants, vitamins and some minerals.

Be very suspicious of all health claims from people who are trying to sell you something. It would probably be better not to read them at all, though I do kind of enjoy the obligatory blurb on all tea stores' websites about how their tea "purifies the blood" and removes unspecified "toxins," whatever those are.

As far as I know, it is still debated whether dietary antioxidants actually provide any significant health benefit. Many studies have concluded that they don't. And there's also the issue of bioavailability: even if a given food contains lots of antioxidants or other good things, you may or may not be able to absorb them, depending on other chemicals in the food, how it's processed and cooked, what else you eat, etc.

I would say: eat/drink things that taste good, because being happy is good for you. Eating vegetables is probably good too, but there are no cure-alls. (Luckily tea tastes good...and it's a vegetable, right?)

If you have access to a library:
Olive tree (Olea europaea) leaves: potential beneficial effects on human health.
And 345 more.

Also I'm curious what olive leaf tea tastes like. Is it anything like olives, or olive oil?

To me it has a tinge of bitterness on the first sip which in subsequent sips becomes unnoticeable, and later explodes into a sweet after taste with a flavor that reminds me of apple juice. It has slight woody notes too and a barkiness that whispers of a cinnamon flavor.

I really enjoy it...went through a whole 2 quarts of it yesterday.

Those studies you linked look really promising toward olive leaf's favor.

I don't make it like regular tea I put 4 heaping teaspoons of shredded and powdered leaf to a quart and 8 oz of filtered water. I put it on the stove and bring it to a boil with the leaves in the water, let it boil wildly for 2 minutes, then i cover the pot, turn off the heat and leave the covered pot on the same burner so it's at a simmer the whole time and I leave it like that for 10 minutes. Then I strain it out into a metal bowl and just drink it throughout the day.

Very interesting. Thanks for making me aware of this.

Sounds like it could be tasty! I'm always on the lookout for new kinds of caffeine-free "non-tea" that I can drink at night. Where do you get olive leaves from?

Keep in mind that pretty much anything will have studies that say it's good for you, other studies that say it's bad for you, and more studies that say it does nothing at all. You have to wait a while for meta-analyses to reveal any kind of general trend. That first article (which I can't read in full because I don't have a subscription) seems to be about potentially beneficial chemicals in olive leaves, which may not even have been studied yet.

You can buy olive leaf whole or crushed at olivus website. I happened to order a pound of whole olive leaves from Kismet Kreations over amazon..it was imported from Albania and took 3 weeks to reach my door but those leaves are very potent. I used a coffee grinder to grind the whole leaves to give more surface area for steeping until my grinder broke then I just cut them in small pieces by hand with scissors.

I make the tisane by putting in a quart and a half of water into a saucepan, 4 heaping teaspoons of my half powdered half cut leaf mixture in and bring it to a boil. I let it boil for 3 minutes and then I put a lid on the pot, turn off the heat, and keep the lidded pot on the burner for 10 minutes.

I find olive leaves to be pretty tough so I imagine it takes a bit more than steeping it in hot water in order for the leaves to release their nutrients that's why I do the stove method. I usually drink the whole quart and a half in an evening, but if you don't it tastes really good refrigerated too.

Mr. Usaji wrote:I would say: eat/drink things that taste good, because being happy is good for you. Eating vegetables is probably good too, but there are no cure-alls. (Luckily tea tastes good...and it's a vegetable, right?)

Exactly, in the west tea and herbal tea seems to be always about health products, weight loss and spirituality. However in the east liangcha, cooling herbal teas, and tea have been a way of life.

If you think about it just about anything and everything is considered medicinal and can benefit something. Including dried cockroaches. Some maybe maybe toxic in one form maybe beneficial in another form. If you like it and it doesn't cause you harm then drink it.