Recipes · Tonic
Sage Tea with Lemon and Honey
Reader ratingsFresh or dried garden sage steeped under a lid into a savory, earthy tea, then brightened with lemon and a little honey. An old Mediterranean mug for a scratchy throat.
Sage (Latin salvia, from salvere, “to be well”) has been brewed and gargled for throat and mouth complaints in Mediterranean and European folk medicine since antiquity.
Safety
- Common sage contains thujone, a compound that causes seizures in large amounts, mostly from the essential oil. European regulators cap sage preparations at 6 mg of thujone a day and advise using low-thujone plants. Thujone levels and quality vary between sage products (a lab analysis of commercial sage teas found up to 20-fold differences in rosmarinic acid), so do not make this stronger than written: at most 3 cups a day, steeped for no more than 10 minutes, and for no more than about 2 weeks at a time. Never swallow sage essential oil.
- Avoid sage tea if you have epilepsy or are pregnant. European guidance also advises against sage while breastfeeding, and sage is traditionally used to dry up breast milk.
- Use common garden sage (Salvia officinalis). White sage sold for smudging, clary sage and Salvia divinorum are different plants.
- Sage may lower blood sugar and blood pressure. If you take diabetes or blood-pressure medicines, monitor your levels when you begin drinking it regularly.
- European guidance advises against sage preparations for anyone under 18, so do not give this tea to children. See a clinician for a sore throat with a high fever, trouble swallowing or breathing, or one that lasts more than a few days. If you add honey, never give it to babies under 12 months.
Why it’s good for you
A caffeine-free herbal tea rich in rosmarinic acid, whose savory flavor turns lemon and honey into a soothing mug.
Evidence
Limited evidence
Mostly small, early, or laboratory studies.
No trial has tested sage tea for sore throat. The throat trials used sprays: in 286 patients with acute viral pharyngitis a 15% sage extract spray eased throat pain more than placebo over the first two hours, and in 154 patients an echinacea-and-sage spray worked about as well as a chlorhexidine-and-lidocaine spray. For tea itself, a non-randomized pilot of six women found 4 weeks of sage tea lowered LDL cholesterol with no change in blood glucose, and a 71-woman open-label trial of fresh-sage tablets reported fewer hot flushes; both were far too small and uncontrolled to rely on.
General information from research and traditional use — not medical advice, and not a treatment for any condition. If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication or managing a health condition, check with your clinician first, and seek care for symptoms that are severe or do not improve.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Rinse the sage leaves and bruise them gently between your palms to wake up their oils.
- Bring the water to a boil. Put the leaves in a teapot or heatproof jar, pour the water over them, and cover tightly.
- Steep for 7 to 10 minutes. Steeping longer makes the tea bitter and stronger than you want.
- Strain into two mugs. Once the tea is no longer scalding, stir in the lemon juice and honey, if using, and sip slowly while warm.
Tips
- To gargle, let a cup cool until comfortably warm, gargle for 30 seconds, and spit it out. Gargling with warm liquid is a traditional way to soothe the throat, and it is gentler than swallowing a lot of sage.
- Whole dried sage leaf from a herb shop is more reliable than old spice-aisle sage. If it smells dusty rather than resinous, replace it.
- A slice of fresh ginger or a sprig of thyme in the pot softens the sage’s bite.
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