Make Your Own: Cold & Flu Tea with Allison Bennett

This workshop includes an in depth explanation of each ingredient's medicinals benefits along with it's cultural significance.  Additionally, students are given the option to participate in making their own loose leaf tea to take home. Come enjoy the company of holistic focused individuals while learning valuable information that anyone can benefit from!

Plant Medicine is a form of holistic healthcare that has existed for thousands of years.  It has influenced culture, media, art, and numerous other parts of humanity.  Despite hundreds of years of proof of the medicinal benefits of these plants through continued medicinal use, modern society has developed a stigma in regards to herbalism.  In order to try to combat that, modern scientists have provided numerous  peer-reviewed scientific studies proving the medicinal benefits of plants.  During this workshop we will review how to correctly source information from a valid institution along with an in depth explanation of the anatomical and biological reasoning behind the benefits of each plant used in the tea.

There are many forms of modern herbalism including clinical herbalism.  Clinical Herbalists rely heavily on scientific data in order to suggest the most effective and least invasive herbal method of symptom management.  Through class discussion we will review how an herbalist makes these decisions and the safety protocols one must maintain in order to create a safe healing environment.  Contraindications, herb-herb, and herb-pharmaceutical interactions will be reviewed for each plant included in the cold & flu tea in addition to educating on the biological and anatomical reasons these reactions might occur.

Students will then be given the opportunity to put their new found knowledge to practice as they are invited to create their own sample of cold & flu tea to take home.  Working together to create a base tea and incorporate additional therapeutic components, this provides students with a unique hands on experience.  Once the tea is completed we will review the importance of accurate labeling and ethical herbal sourcing.