Butterfly Pea is jam-packed full of health-promoting antioxidants, flavonoids, and peptides and has shown considerable promise in animal studies as a natural remedy for a range of health complaints.
Clitoria ternatea is a legume plant commonly found in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka. For centuries, the bright blue flower petals of the butterfly pea plant have been used as an ingredient in herbal tea drinks throughout the region, as well as in cooking. Blue flowers appear blue when soaked in warm or hot water, so they can be used as dyes and add color to various traditional dishes.
How to make this blue tea?
Just boil some blue pea petals and dried lemongrass in water for 5 to 10 minutes. Add a little honey to this herbal mixture and drink it hot before meals. Blue tea can also be drunk cold after meals to aid digestion and promote healthy sleep.
What are the health benefits of Clitoria Ternatea?
1. Contains powerful antioxidants which facilitate digestion
Butterfly pea flowers are popular for being the main ingredient of functional beverages. Butterfly pea tea is rich in antioxidants, making it a great drink in a detox diet, especially in summer. Antioxidants protect the body from the effects of free radicals. Free radicals are harmful substances that can damage healthy cells in the body. Drinking a cup of blue tea on an empty stomach once or twice a week can remove toxins accumulated in the system and greatly improve the health of the digestive system.
2. Promotes healthy skin
The flavonoids present in blue tea help stimulate the production of collagen and maintain and maintain the elasticity of the skin. Drinking a cup of warm blue tea will periodically delete the system, eliminating the stomach, liver, and kidney. This then turns on the body internally and eliminates the opaque skin and eliminates the dark spots and inequality of the skin.
3. Promotes healthy eyesight
The rich proanthocyanidin complex in blue tea makes it a refreshing, enjoyable, and nutritious sight-enhancing drink. Because blue tea has anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties (that is, pain-relieving properties), it has significant benefits in reducing discomfort, redness, and swelling in common eye infections. By stimulating blood flow rich in essential nutrients to the capillary complexes of visual cells and tissues, blue tea effectively protects the visual organelles and the structure of the retina, cornea, lens, healing signs of glaucoma and blurred vision.
4. May help you fight against hypertension
Clitoria Ternatea is traditionally used as a diuretic, which has been confirmed in animal studies but has not been further studied. Butterfly pea is believed to promote the excretion of water (urination), which reduces the quality of the blood and thus lowers high blood pressure. This diuretic effect has also been suggested to help with rapid but generally short-lived weight loss.
5. May have the potential for cognitive development
In the past two decades, numerous studies have been conducted to examine butterfly pea flowers and their effects on cognitive health. Some of these studies report the benefits of animal research. A closer look is needed to fully understand how these benefits translate to human health, but preliminary research is promising.
In Southeast Asia, butterfly pea is used as a natural food coloring. In traditional Thai cuisine, butterfly pea flowers are squeezed to obtain a blue extract, which is then mixed with coconut milk and other staple ingredients to make naturally blue and purple Thai desserts. "Nam dok anchan" is a refreshing and syrupy indigo drink, commonly consumed in Thailand, made with pea flowers, honey, and syrup.