Lavender Tea: Health Benefits, Side Effects, and How to Brew

Lavender—a beloved, well-known fragrant, and indulgent herb. We know it for its intoxicating scent, seductive color, and variety of uses.

Drinking lavender tea is a favorite pastime of mine, and the benefits of lavender tea are many.

Let's get brewing on all this herb has to offer!

What Type of Lavender is Good for Tea?

Did you know there are 47 species of lavender (or Lavandula), with over 450 varieties?

Bear in mind, not all of these are good for lavender tea though. Some are used for extracts or soaps; not for ingesting, while others are predominantly used for cooking (also known as culinary lavender) and sipping. Let me break it down a bit for you.

The English lavender plant, or Lavandula angustifolia, is commonly used in lavender tea. It's what's known as "true lavender" and is used quite universally in many culinary dishes. Lavandin, or Lavandula intermedia, a hybrid cross between English and Portuguese lavender is also used. Some lavenders, like Spanish lavenders, are too strong for lavender tea and other culinary dishes.

Drinking lavender tea should provide delicate floral notes, a soothing scent, and calming effects. Ensuring the right lavender plant is chosen for your best brewing experience does just that!

Benefits of Lavender Tea

Lavender Tea for Better Sleep Quality

Did you know, there is a proven link between scent and emotional well-being?

The scent of something soothing and pleasing stimulates your olfactory senses. In turn, this transmits a message to your brain, helping you to relax and unwind. It's like the body's way of decompressing itself via lavender fragrance. It's a mind-body approach, a universal self-awareness that helps to soothe the nervous system and promote restful sleep.

Lavender tea is a wonderful cuppa to enjoy before bed to unwind, disconnect from the day, and reconnect with yourself. It's well-known to help ease you into a healthy and good night's sleep. Drinking lavender tea regularly can even help with insomnia. What's even better?

This self-created space allows you to prioritize a little time for yourself. You're worth it!

Lavender Tea for Headache Relief

If you've ever had one—you know what I mean when I say they're a day wrecker. The pain, nausea, and feeling down and out can really leave you feeling stuck. I have a couple of tips up my sleeve though, so fear not! Lavender tea comes to the rescue once again!

What's wonderful about lavender is that even the soothing scent can help to ease headaches. Drinking lavender tea may help to reduce or treat your headache with the delightful scent of its aroma. What's more—a cup of lavender tea contains within it anti-inflammatory properties.

Brewing a cup of lavender tea provides you with a pleasing aroma and anti-inflammatory properties, both known to help offset certain stress hormones, leading to a reduction in headaches. Lavender tea also helps to increase blood circulation, thus helping to deliver oxygen to the brain.

I'd also like to mention chamomile here as well. Lavender chamomile tea would really give you a wham-bam to combat headaches. Chamomile holds within it many calming and relaxing properties as well and is great for inflammation, too.

Together, you'll have two superhero herbal teas fighting for you!

Lavender Tea for Tummy Troubles

Lavender tea benefits are many. Feeling a bit under the weather? Nausea, indigestion, and stomach cramps got you down? Lavender tea to the rescue once again!

The anti-inflammatory properties found in dried lavender flowers can help to soothe the stomach muscles and decrease or eliminate stomach pain. Imagine your indigestion, gas, and bloating gone! For women who are experiencing menstrual cramping, appreciating the scent of calming lavender tea, along with its ability to soothe stomach muscle spasms, can really help to fight cramps.

It's been shown that enjoying a glass of lavender tea after a meal helps aid in digestion as well, helping your body to process your meal and prevent the unwanted after-effects of bloating or gas. It's so great for your immune system, too! An all-around winner!

How to Make Lavender Tea

Making lavender tea is a beautiful process that bestows a delicate cup of aroma and color. It's a favorite of mine—no matter the combination of "lavender and...".

Lavender is a naturally occurring caffeine-free herbal tea. Harvesters are careful to harvest the lavender blossoms, or buds, at just the right time, ensuring the plant has enough buds and it's at the correct time of day. This all plays a part in getting the best tasting, best quality, lavender.

At Plum Deluxe, all our ingredients are natural, organic, and handcrafted. What's even better is that when it comes to our organic lavender, we source it from right here in Oregon, as much as we can! Native, natural, and from our own backyard!

When it comes time to brew up a cuppa fresh lavender tea, the beautiful little mauve purple or blue buds you see mixed in your loose tea are the buds from the lavender plant.

Since lavender is often an herbal tea, it's important that you take note of your water temperature when it comes to brewing. You want hot water—a roaring boil to be exact—so that it allows the buds to really unfurl. This is what will allow each of them to release their beautiful color and intoxicating fragrance.

The other great aspect of herbal teas is that you have a nice window of time with them when it comes to steeping. It's palate preference dependent—meaning you get to decide what tastes best to you. Plum Deluxe makes it easy for you by putting the information right on the bag so there's no guesswork for you on temperature or steep time.

Now we're going to dive into a few of my favorite Plum Deluxe lavender teas and I'm going to see you off with a little "how-to" on lavender milk tea. It's absolutely divine!

Lavender Daydream White Tea

This fruity and floral infusion will leave you daydreaming all day long! With its irresistible blend of delicate white tea, apricot pieces, lavender, rose petals, and some lemon and orange for added zest—it's just the bee's knees!

This tea is wonderful for gatherings with friends, and even with its touch of caffeine, it's great for an evening wind-down. It's definitely a top contender for a lavender tea favorite of mine with its lovely layers of flavors!

Calm Chamomile Bloom Herbal Tea

Ready for a natural and soothing blend? A cuppa that allows for a recenter and mind-body inner calm amidst a floral infusion of lavender tea and rose. Balanced by crisp lemongrass and fresh lemon balm, this loose tea blend is as divine as it is colorful!

Delightful Morning Blend

When it comes to sourcing organic lavender for this tea, we utilize fresh Oregon lavender from the flower festivals we visit during the spring and summer months.

Does it get any more natural and beautiful than this?

This black tea base is complemented by organic lavender, bergamot, and vanilla—creating an enticing lavender earl grey tea. This lovely tea will range a bit on the caffeine front, depending on your steep time. An added bonus—if you're caffeine sensitive, we also offer our Delightful Morning Blend in decaf! If you're looking to add a little cream, this tea is an excellent pairing for that as well.

Meadow Walk Herbal Tea

With a green rooibos herbal tea base and a medley of blueberry, lavender, and rosemary, this loose tea blend has Mother Nature written all over it. When I drink it I feel grounded, connected, and inspired! The soothing scent is intoxicating with the trio of floral and berry. The rosemary in this tea is also an age-old herb known to help with throat irritation. So drink on when you're feeling under the weather.

May you, too feel inspired to dream a little bigger and reach a little further!

Reading Nook Tea Blend

Reading Nook is our signature tea blend, specially created for some of our greatest passions: enjoying with friends, reading a good book, and writing.

Ever heard of cream black tea? Well, now you have! That's what the base of this loose tea is built off. It adds a unique depth and crème, followed by rosebuds, dried lavender, and chamomile. Passion, flavor, aroma, and balance will fill your cup! This tea also pairs well with milk, if you'd like to add a dab.

It's one of our prettiest teas—I'm sure you'll agree! For those of you that are watching caffeine, it's also available in decaf. We've got you covered!

'Vista Blend' Herbal Tea

This honeybush tea, with perfectly balanced dried lavender flowers, juicy apricot, fruity apple, and sunflower petals is a tea that aims to please.

I love honeybush tea bases for two reasons: they're caffeine free and they have a beautiful flavor! If you haven't ever had one, I highly encourage you to give it a try.

Easy Like Sunday Morning Herbal Tea

Here again, we feature a honeybush base, coupled with cocoa nibs and Oregon lavender tea.

The result? Perfection! It's a chocolatey indulgence with a delicate floral infusion that leaves an enticing enchantment of flavors on your palate, and a yearning for the next sip. It's such a yummy lavender tea!

Lavender Milk Tea

Have you heard of lavender milk tea? New to this idea? If you are, you're in for a treat! If you know all about this, you're already in on the secret of this indulgent cuppa!

To drink lavender tea is one thing, but to indulge in lavender milk tea is another. Choose the right lavender tea, steam some milk (if you want it hot), mix, and viola!

May I suggest choosing either Delightful Morning Blend or Reading Nook Blend. The reason these are best is that they're both black tea bases. When adding milk or cream to a tea, you want to avoid doing this with herbal teas, white teas, and most green tea. The depth of the black tea provides the necessary counterpart you need to pair with milk and not curdle your tea.

To prepare a hot tea blend, simply start by preparing your tea as you normally would with hot water, then steam (if you have a machine), or heat on the stovetop or microwave, your milk carefully. If you're doing this on the stovetop or in the microwave, I'd suggest whisking well so you can obtain some nice frothy milk. This isn't just for the character, but it really helps to enhance the flavor of the milk and in turn your milk tea.

Now that you've brewed your tea, it's time to marry these two—leave a little room on the top of your teacup (personal preference here) and add in your freshly made hot milk or cream, thus creating your very own wonderful cup!

If you'd like to make a nice iced brew, start by steeping your tea in hot water and chilling it if you're able. If not, try to give it a quick few minutes in the refrigerator anyhow, before you move on to blending these. Go ahead and place some ice in your cup of choice, pour in your tea, and top off with your depth of preference for cold cream or milk. Then stir well to enjoy a delicious cuppa!

You may enjoy this sweetener free, or with a little indulgence of some honey or sweetener. May I suggest our raw creamed honey—it's absolutely one of the most divine sweeteners I've had the pleasure of introducing to my tastebuds!

Now is your time to sit back and enjoy the newfound layers and flavors of this delightful treat!