Pukka – Elderberry & Echinacea
I’ve been a bit poorly lately. I’m not sure what I had (it wasn’t COVID; I checked – twice!), but it laid me low for over a week. While I was nesting under my blanket of self-pity, I hit upon the bright idea of brewing up a bunch of herbal teas from the tea stash to see if they had any of the miraculous ot-making-me-feel-like-crap properties that the internet always claims that they do.
I didn’t do it. I couldn’t be arsed. I could barely be bothered to make a normal cup of tea. I went whole days with a maximum of two cups of tea, which is way below my usual tea intake.
Well, I did manage one. This here Pukka Elderberry & Echinacea. This tisane contains no less than 12 different ingredients. These are (deep breath) liquorice, ginger, echinacea, beetroot, aniseed, rosehip, elderflower, peppermint, orange, elderberry, hibiscus and natural blackcurrant flavour.
With that many things in it, it must be good for you, right? Well, I took the first ingredient on the list and googled “medicinal properties of liquorice tea”. The first result on Google was a herbal tea-seller (natch) who listed no less than eight health benefits, including fighting infections and soothing sore throats.
So extrapolating from that, there should be ninety-six health benefits in this one cup of herbally infused disgustingness. (Don’t check my maths on this.)
And Elderberry & Echinacea is disgusting, don’t get me wrong. I refuse to believe that anyone can drink this stuff for fun. The potentially pleasant flavours like ginger, orange and blackcurrant are entirely overwhelmed by the liquorice, peppermint and an overall vibe of rotten celery and damp carpets.
Did it make me feel any healthier? The liquorice alone should have relieved my cough, cold symptoms, and – as a surprising bonus – the symptoms of menopause. The article claimed that “liquorice can reduce the length and severity of hot flushes almost as effectively as HRT”. (Without any references or citations to back this up, of course.)
To be fair to Pukka, the actual purveyors of this nightmare, they don’t make any such fancy claims. They do say that Elderberry & Echinacea is soothing and comforting and that it prepares you for life’s ups and downs.
But honestly, those are all things I can get from a nice cup of Earl Grey. And that would actually taste nice.
