I bought a packet of dried Chinese herbal tea because I am so curious about the contents. It is rather cheap, I think about RM3. I saw some interesting stuffs like the angsana seed (pokok sena), something like styrofoam, lallang and other funny looking grass or weeds.
I remember when we were in Sains class in primary school, we learned about germination and the angsana seed is often used as an example. However, the one in the herbal packet is white and very thin, and not woody like the local ones we find.
There’s a whole bunch of them in the packet. It is soft, very delicate and guess what? I throw them in the air and see them slowly drop to my table.
There are dried, green blade of grass like the lallang, the brownish caterpillar like herbs call the ‘hair-kor chau’ I think and that whitish styrofoam circles.
Then, there is the kum-choe or liquorice which is a bark. The man at the Chinese herbal medicine stall told me to boil the packet with some brown sugar. I did and it tastes nice, just like the ‘leng teh’ or cooling herbal drink found in coffee shops. It has a smooth taste and though it is mostly consist of green grass, it doesn’t ‘smell green’ at all.
I had drank it for a few hours already and still live to write this. So, I suppose they are not toxic LOL.
That ‘white styrofoam’ (you name it so:)) thingy can be boiled alone (with a little bit of rock sugar, if you like) to ‘open up’ your voice. I did it last month when I had very bad sore throat till cannot let out voice. It works!
This tea is called ‘lap sap char’ because the ingredients look like sampah !! Anyway I like the taste too and it’s really good in this hot hot weather.