Teas to help ease colds and flu

I found this tea at a local health food store, but now I've also noticed it in the grocery store:

This is what's in it (click on the image to see it closer):

My husband came down with a nasty cold about a month and a half ago. He is not a tea drinker and tends to look upon my attempts at herbal remedies with disdain. I convinced him to try a cup of this tea one evening because he was so miserable with his cold. The next morning he said, "Oh, um, if you have any more of that tea, I'd like a cup." Which meant that it helped him feel better.

But I added a little something to it. I chopped up one little piece of elecampane root and added it to the brew. I had ordered the elecampane from Mountain Rose Herbs a few months ago:

When my daughter came down with the same cold, I gave her the same stuff and she happily drank it three times a day, which meant it worked for her too because it's not the tastiest tea (although the licorice root helps loads).

They had both complained of a sore throat first, before the cold hit. So when that "off" feeling hit me a few days later - you know the feeling, your insides feel like something's coming on - and my throat had an inkling of hurt, I wanted to take preventative measures.

I remembered a bush tea that I had bought on a trip to the Virgin Islands. It was supposed to ease a sore throat. I dug that out of the back of my cupboard:

I had some lemon balm which I'd harvested from a wild stand I found in the woodsy part of my back yard earlier in the year. I had dried it and put it away for later. Lemon balm is supposed to have mild antiviral properties. I have no doubts that my wild stand escaped from someone's garden round abouts.:

And I had my trusty elecampane - good for respiration, and it has antiviral properties too.

So I made my own brew with the bay rum, the lemon balm, and a small piece of dried elecampane root, chopped. I drank it three times a day for two days and came down with nary a sniffle.

Did I really fend off a nasty cold? Or did I just feel "off" for a day and nothing more. I don't know, but when I feel as though something is coming on again, I'll be drinking my tea.

The bay rum bush tea will have to be replenished. They do have a website, but their web-store doesn't seem to work. It does have contact information on the site so that you can call to order, or mail an order to them. Click here to go to their site. I would highly recommend bay rum bush tea. It's yummy smelling with a spicy, almost clovey scent and taste, and it does wonders on a sore throat.

And, as you can tell from the photo above, my lemon balm is running low. I did save a great many seeds, though, which I'm hoping to sew in the garden come springtime.