Amazing Burdock Tea
The other day, I came across the amazing burdock root at an Asian market. This fresh produce had a green sign right next to it, outlining the awesome benefits of the weirdly looking sticks.
The benefit card was literally full:
- Blood purifying
- Cancer fighting
- Treat cold
- Soothe joint pain
- Improve skin condition
- Lower blood pressure
- Fight diabetes
- Ease stomach and intestinal complaints
- Treat gout and bladder infection…
The list goes on and on… me being me, this immediately caught my attention. I started my little research tast rigth away. At the end of the day, these 2 roughly 4 ft long sticks cost less than 2 dollars, so I got them anyways.
After I got home, I researched more, compared the benefits and potential risks, and was convinced I shall give it a try. After all, burdock is one of the Chinese medicine ingredients, well known for the medical benefits.
Most of my little research touched on burdock tea one way or the other, and seems like a quite feasible and simple way to try burdock at home without purchasing supplements. So this is what I decided to do.
I snapped the burdock roots into manageable lengths, about 1 ft long each. I scrubbed it thoroughly under cold running water. The root would be visibly lighter in color.
I thinly sliced the root at an diagonal to gain more surface area on the cuts, because I feel this way it would help release all the goodness inside burdock roots. Of course, I didn’t have a mandoline slicer on hand, so I showed off my knife skills a little. Side note, the mannual slicing session gave me enough reason to invest in a small mandoline, which really is just the single slot on the box grater.
Being a newbie, I couldn’t wait. I boiled a small pot of water on the stove. Cut off the heat once the water came to a rapid boil. I threw a bunch of burdock slices into the hot water and put the lid back on to let it steep.
Now, for the rest of the burdock slices, I laid them onto 2 of my largest baking sheets in 1 single layer, as much as I could. I popped the baking sheets into a 200F oven for 3 hours, to slowly dehydrate them for storage.
Of course, I went on this journey to look for a mandoline slicer. I initially had the fancy triangle slicer in mind. Something like this:
It’s so funny, when you know exactly what you want, but are convinced that some cheaper stores would have it, you could never find it, just because you wanted to save a few dollars. So I ended up getting one of these for next time.
When I got back from the store, the burdock tea was completely cooled. I couldn’t wait to serve myself a cup.
The tea is slightly brown in color, very light in my case since I used fresh burdock root slices. However, the subtle sweet flavor and amazing aroma makes it hard to believe I was enjoying something good for my health! A lot of people suggest adding honey or agave as sweetener, I personally think the tea as is, is perfection, nothing else is needed. Unless you want to add some other ingredients that is beneficial for something else and needed some sweetener to offset the strong taste.
When the rest of the burdock slices were done dehydrating in the oven, I took them out and let them completely cool. Into a large plastic bag they go, I will enjoy these amazing burdock root slices for a little while and see if they really have a noticeable impact on my health.
