Organic Pregnancy Tea

Before I discovered my love of loose leaf tea, Traditional Medicinals was one of my favorite go-to bagged brews. Pregnancy spurred me into finding an affordable, easy to brew, but still tasty tea that would help support my body during such a hormonal time. Organic Pregnancy Tea has fit the bill!

I steep two bags to a cup for a stronger flavor. I use boiling hot water, cover my cup, and steep for at least 10 minutes, but not quite 15. I add about a half teaspoon of sugar to the cup as well.

The tea brews up a fairly dark brown color and is light and minty tasting. I don’t find this tea bitter or astringent like at all, which some of the bagged medicinal teas have issues with. This is a great morning and afternoon tea since the minty taste is quite refreshing. It does end with a bit of a dry mouth, but following up this cup with a glass of water is a good idea for pregnant ladies!

Not sure how much of an effect on my pregnancy or birth this tea has had or will have (baby is due in about 6 weeks!) but I’ve also not been consistent in drinking it. I may try to be better about having at least a cup a day until the end of the pregnancy now as a bit of an experiment!

I’m 1.5 weeks from my due date! I’m sooooo ready to meet this baby and also to get my body back. I had the easiest pregnancy up until the last couple months. I’ve gained more weight than I should have and I’m not all that tall. I think my body wasn’t built to handle this much weight, so I’m pretty much in constant pain. Sleeping is the worst. Any time I’m laying down, I hurt everywhere: hips, thighs, abdomen, back. It’s obnoxious! I get about an hour of sleep and then I wake up in so much pain that the only way to get rid of it is to stand up and walk around, which obviously means I’m exhausted and fatigued. This is much harder than I had anticipated. I walk at the speed of a 95-year-old lady. I constantly feel like I have to pee even when there’s no pee in me. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night because I vomit in my sleep. Yuck. I feel helpless. It’s rather pitiful. I can’t wait to be normal again. And of course, it’s all worth it. But that doesn’t make the pain any less at this moment. At least I’m not afraid of labor anymore! The number one word to describe how I feel about labor is excited! Bring it on! Well, that was a huge digression but at least an on topic one. :)

ON TO THE TEA!

I tend to steep this once for 5 minutes and then again for 15. That way I get two cups out of one teabag. Today I kind of forgot about it and steeped it for 20 minutes out of the gate. Whoops! Anyway, this tea is a surprise. I guess I always assumed red raspberry leaf would be red and taste like raspberries. But it’s the color of your average herbal (a dark amber) and tastes like mint. Watered down mint; it’s not super strong.

Overall, it’s an enjoyable tea. It’s obviously not something I would drink if I wasn’t pregnant, but I can recommend it to other women in their third trimester. Now I have no idea if this will bring on labor any faster, but it’s supposed to be good for me. So I plan on drinking two cups a day until I run out of tea or the baby arrives, whichever comes first. Let’s hope it’s the latter. :) Come on, baby! We want to meet you!

This tea is a godsend during pregnancy. I usually drink this with a dash of ginger, and sometimes a pinch of Xylitol. It’s a very mild tea, somewhat minty, herbaceous, and with just a touch of underlying citrusy tartness. That description makes it sound much like the Lemon Verbena I recently reviewed, but here those flavors blend soothingly rather than clash. It’s not a tea I would choose purely for its taste, but since I could drink it when I had morning sickness bad enough that plain water turned my stomach, I give it a high score for fulfilling it’s intended purpose