Not sure what to buy?

We separate the Chinese teas from our Herbal blends because they have very different actions, bringing us nicely onto the difference between ‘tonic’ plants and ‘medicinal’ plants.

Tonic plants (also known as adaptogens) facilitate and increase the effectiveness of our innate healing system. They are non specific in their action, raising your general levels of health, by balancing the body and supporting its organ systems. They help you to ‘adapt’ ( hence the name adaptogen) by reducing both mental and physical stresses on body and mind.

Considered a truly elite class of plants, they are known to impart strength, energy, endurance, and mental clarity and help you maintain a calmer, more productive state. The Chinese tea plant (from which ALL the teas in our ‘Chinese teas’ section come from) sits in this category. Tonic plants are more generally used to prevent illness rather than try to fix it.

‘Medicinal’ plants are ‘the fixers’. A plant is classed as medicinal if it has active ingredients that can cure or lessen symptoms and most herbal hot drinks will fall into this category (such as chamomile, peppermint and ginger). They are generally used therapeutically and not designed for long-term use but for shorter periods of time or used intermittently when needed.

Medicinal herbs are much more specific in their actions, so our herbal blends, which mix therapeutic herbs with Chinese tea, are named deliberately to help guide you as to their action.

So to guide you where to start, we suggest a Chinese Tea (white, green, oolong, black, pu-erh, jasmine green or our ATTIC Blend) for regular drinking, as it is safe to drink every day and its positive effects are cumulative so the more you drink, the more lasting the positive holistic effects on your health become.

When struggling with a particular condition - poor sleep, disturbed digestion or flagging energy, then a herbal blend, with its more targeted medicinal action, might be your first port of call to help get you back in balance.

Or maybe pick one of each, helping support your immediate needs as well as your constitutional ones :)