Sunday, December 27, 2009

Tulsi / Holy Basil: Research Motivated by Taste

I just researched and created an article on Tulsi / Holy Basil.

The interesting thing about this article is that this was an herbal tea that I had not "naturally" stumbled upon in the course of adding teas to RateTea, something I've been doing for months now. I have added all of the teas from a number of tea companies, including Adagio, Rishi, Teavana, and a number of smaller companies. While I haven't checked to see whether or not these or other companies blend tulsi into their teas (I know Yogi does), I do know that these companies don't carry a pure tulsi blend.

How did I find out about this plant? I have been sampling many of Upton Tea Import's teas, and I ordered a sample of their green- and purple-leaf tulsi teas. I tried the purple-leaf variety first, and I fell in love with the first sip...this stuff is delicious. (My review of Upton's Purple-leaf Tulsi on RateTea)

Interestingly, it was the taste and overall experience of drinking the tea that motivated me to start researching the plant. I was surprised to find a huge amount of scientific literature on this plant, a plant which I had barely heard of and knew nothing about before seeing it in Upton's catalogue. Although a lot of the research is young and preliminary to a degree, there's a great diversity of research out there, and the evidence mostly points in the direction of this plant having numerous health benefits...I had to pick and choose a few studies that highlighted the various beneficial properties of this plant. This whole experience seems to reinforce my strange idea that taste can possibly be a guide to health...

View the results of my research: Tulsi / Holy Basil

No comments:

Post a Comment