Volume 150, Issue 1, 28 October 2013, Pages 162–174
Where does the border lie: Locally grown plants used for making tea for recreation and/or healing, 1970s–1990s Estonia
Abstract
Ethnopharmacological relevance
Traditional
use of local wild and cultivated plants for making recreational tea in
Estonia often borders with the medicinal use of the same plants.
Aim of the study
The
aim of this paper is to map the perceptions of plants used for making
tea and to define the domains of recreational and medicinal teas in
specific cultural settings.
Materials and methods
Between
November 2011 and March 2012 the authors distributed electronic
questionnaires on the use of wild food plants in childhood. The
questionnaire was answered by 250 respondents. 178 of them reported the
use of plants for making recreational teas. The responses were analysed
according to the taxonomy of the used plants, the most frequently used
taxa and families were detected, the influence of respondents'
demographic data on the number of use reports was assessed and the
overlapping of medicinal and recreational uses was discussed.
Results
The
study detected 69 vascular plant species, ten vascular taxa identified
on the genera level only, and one lichen. The most popular families were
Rosaceae, Asteraceae and Lamiacea, and 12 taxa were used by at least
10% of the respondents, while only one of them (Tilia) was used by more than 50% and one (Rubus idaeus) by over 33% of the respondents. The next ten most used taxa were: Rosa, Mentha, Primula veris, Matricaria, Achillea millefolium, Hypericum, Carum carvi, Urtica dioica, Thymus serpyllum and Fragaria. Of the 30 most used consolidated taxa mentioned in five or more use records, only four were used exclusively in one domain.
Conclusions
The
majority of the used plants were situated on the recreational-medicinal
continuum, which could be divided into two domains: recreational,
medicinal and the “grey” area that lies around the borderline. The
predominance of the cold and cold-related diseases on the spectrum
treated by plants used for making recreational tea reflects the climatic
conditions of the region and suggests that they are the most commonly
self-treated diseases in the region, seen from the child's perspective.
Graphical abstract
Most used plants in recreational and medicinal tea domains.
Keywords
- Recreational tea;
- Medicinal tea;
- Folk nutraceuticals;
- Food culture;
- Herbal landscape
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