Not related to the Ginger Tea, but if you ever have the opportunity, I highly recommend czeching out Prague, the Capital city of the Czech Republic. Friendly folks, good food, and for you beer drinkers, they have lots of that too.
Ahoj / Nazdar,
Happy New Years to everyone!
It’s been about five years for me since I was starting a new year out in the Czech Republic, actually I wasn’t even diagnosed with UC the last time new years or “Novy Rok” came around for me in the East Block lands. But for those of you who are out of pocket and far away from home right now, or even if you’re back in your usual crib, I wanted to share my new favorite drink/tea/ dessert that I’m really loving and pretty sure some of you will too.
The cool(or warm) part is, it’s super simple to make, it tastes great, lots of health benefits (at least according to the Czech grannies I’ve been chatting with), and in some magical way, it warms you right up after being outside in the freezing weather. And yes, its Specific Carbohydrate Diet or SCD legal too. Here’s a link from PubMed that gives the abstract to a study: Cancer Preventive Properties of Ginger you might want to check out too. ALSO, here’s another study titled: Modulating Effect of Ginger Extract on Rats with Ulcerative Colitis that has an interesting abstract as well.
The main part of this tea is Ginger, and you don’t need to much of it, a half ounce or 15 grams will do just fine. But, as the days have rolled on, I’m starting to crank up the ginger content quite a bit. I don’t really know how you measure this stuff, but for a pot of water maybe 6 cups worth or 1 liter, I’m chopping up about 3 inches of ginger. But at the end of the day, I’m not some seasoned Englishman who knows a ton about tea, any maybe you are in that same boat. And since everyone has their own taste buds, I’d encourage you to do some experimenting with how much of the different ingredients. For example, I am addicted to honey, so I put in about 5 times as much as my wife. Squeezed lemon juice, I like that stuff too. I squeeze the heck out of about a half lemon into the full tea pot. Do as you please, but in the end, the combination of ginger, lemon, honey and hot water is pretty darn nice.
This is pretty much all you need. Some Ginger, Honey, and Lemon Juice ( I already squeezed the lemon juice into the teapot) And if you’re way down with it, go search out a local bee farmer. That jar of tea is from my wife’s friend Linka’s family in Tynec. They make that stuff and it’s way tastier than the stuff I found in the stores here.
How to Make Ginger Tea:
- Ginger – get some fresh ginger and slice off the outside part and then make thin slices with what’s left. For one cup, about an inch or 10mm of ginger is a fair amount. (Note: in some local restaurants here where I’ve ordered this, they don’t even cut off the outside nasty part….and I’m still alive…so if you’re in a lazy mood, you can skip this 10 second step if you really are in a rush)
- Lemon – get a fresh lemon and squeeze that into your cup or tea pot. About half a lemon for a full pot will do, but again, experiment!
- Honey – Once you have hot water you can add the honey. Experiment with the amounts. I like it real sweet, some people don’t. Up to you!
- Hot water – you know how to do this.
Was I dying to take a bit into the cheesecake my wife was chowing on at this little cafe place we hit up???
NOPE.
I had my own dessert of ginger tea right there too.
Little Tips for the Concoction:
- If you’re making a single cup, you can put the ginger right into your cup. Yes, you might get some chunks in your mouth, but hey, now you can either chew it, spit it out, or I guess eat it. I’m not big on chowing ginger chunks, but maybe others are…
Feeling Warm Afterwards:
- If you start to notice your body temperature rising inside, just give a nice big smile. I’m going through that right now as I write up this post and it’s a nice little natural high.
Good luck with it, and if I could find some fresh mint like one place served it with, I’d be all over it when making the drink up at home.
Adam Scheuer
I started site shortly after being diagnosed in October of 2008 with severe pancolitis (when my whole colon was inflamed).
For me, it was a very rough start with severe symptoms. Getting bounced from medication to medication was not easy or too helpful. But, I did meet another UC’er, changes several parts of my diet, and of course the rest is history.
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