With the end of February, the period of early spring begins. While walking, we will notice here and there the first catkins growing on willows. This beautiful symbol of the coming spring, which we have known from an early age as a harbinger of warmer days, is also used in medicine. Few people know that catkins infusion has a unique effect – it is useful for colds and flu, because it has anti-inflammatory, diaphoretic and analgesic properties!
Catkins, in addition to serving as an ideal decoration for the table, are herbal raw material from which you can prepare healthy infusions. Catkins tea is recommended especially for small children. They can be used even in the youngest – in infants over three months of age, one tablespoon of the infusion is given three times a day.
Unusual properties of willow
Why is it worth drinking such a miracle? Twigs and willow bark have been used in physiotherapy for centuries. In Egypt, they were used as a painkiller, and Hippocrates used this ingredient to relieve labor pains. The first aspirin was also obtained from willow in the first half of the XNUMXth century. The infusion of catkins is tastier than that obtained from the twigs, has anti-inflammatory, analgesic and expectorant properties, in addition, its effect is very mild and it is virtually impossible to overdose on it.
How to prepare basi tea?
To ensure that we do not harm ourselves, catkins should be collected in ecologically clean places. You can use fresh or dried catkins, and you can also dry some for storage. If we haven’t hit the base in their natural bloom yet, you can pick a few willow twigs and put them in a vase with water, waiting for the “kittens” to appear.
One of the ways to prepare the infusion is base milk, i.e. adding one tablespoon of base to one glass of milk.
- Method one: heat the milk with catkins on a slow fire, when it starts to boil and is very hot, remove it from the heat and leave it to cool. After 10 minutes, when the milk extracts the beneficial ingredients from catkins, you can drink the infusion.
- Method two: boil the milk and wait 3 minutes, then pour it over the base, cover for 10 minutes to strain and drink warm.
If you can’t drink cow’s milk, use the vegan version, in which 1 cup of coconut milk or other milk, e.g. almond milk, is added to one tablespoon of basi. The most important thing is that it is fat enough. They are prepared in the same way as the cow’s milk version.
Of course, the taste of base milk can be diversified thanks to other healthy additions:
- A teaspoon of linden blossom,
- clove oil (intended for strong infections, only for adults),
- 2 teaspoons of coconut oil,
- 1-2 teaspoons of butter,
- spices,
- Honey (avoid for children under 1 year old).