Super Beauty, a Better Booch sipper that’s an eclectic mashup of tart hibiscus, caramel coffee cherry, and subtly earthy organic oolong tea, packs enough antioxidants to power Superman’s cape, Wonder Woman’s lasso, or Thor’s hurtling hammer. Coffee, dark chocolate, and pomegranate or cranberry lovers will appreciate the touch sour, touch bitter undertones in this unpasteurized, raw kombucha.
Find out more about the research-supported potential benefits of drinking an infusion of coffee cherry, organic oolong, and hibiscus tea boosted with kombucha’s probiotic goodness.
Hibiscus Tea Benefits
Tea brewed with hibiscus is rich in phytochemicals and polyphenols, especially anthocyanins. That’s nutritional science-speak for lots of antioxidants. Hibiscus’ good bits may help provide a protective shield against diabetes1 and some types of cancer, and even kidney stones.
Hibiscus tea may also provide anti-inflammatory, blood sugar and blood pressure lowering, and even body fat reduction2. It’s used in 10 countries to treat high blood pressure3 and high LDL cholesterol (that’s the “bad” boogeyman kind) with no reported side effects.
Hibiscus is head of the class of holistic healers, but what else is hibiscus tea good for? It lends a sassy scarlet hue to tea and imparts a naturally tart flavor, like unsweetened cranberries. The pleasing zingy taste may also aid in digestion4.
Better Booch Super Beauty is brewed with hibiscus flower and organic oolong tea, which has its own bounty of benefits.
Organic Oolong Tea Benefits
Oolong tea packs more than 100 chemical components that may improve human health5. It can impact our biology6 in anticancer, anti-diabetic, cholesterol-lowering, and immune-stimulating ways. Some type 2 diabetics who drank oolong tea instead of just water lowered the amount of glucose7 in their blood.
Mouse studies show that the polyphenols in oolong tea can change the gut microbiota8. If you want to geek out on the specific gut bacteria strains impacted in rodents, an increase in bacteroidetes and a decrease in firmicutes9 happened after two months of oolong tea consumption.
While research on rodents doesn’t always translate exactly to humans (it’s more complicated and gross to study changes in the human gut microbiota… think stool samples), this data still shows promise. You can see the probiotic potential that oolong tea combined with kombucha, which is rich in live probiotic strains, can have on your belly bugs.
Coffee Cherry (Cascara) Benefits
To make this raw kombucha truly worthy of its name, we looked for a polyphenol-packed powerhouse to add a little boost to the tart hibiscus and woody, warm oolong. We landed on coffee cherry, or cascara, which adds a flavor mashup of mango, red currant, and rose hips. Cascara comes from red coffee cherries that are often tossed out during the coffee production process.
Cascara contains antioxidants (polyphenols and anthocyanins), vitamin C, alkaloids, tannins, and caffeine10. It even has anti-radical, anti-cancer, and vitality-boosting properties11 that prove eight times as potent as those in blueberries.
Now you can see how Super Beauty got her cape. She delivers beauty from the inside out.
References
1. Seema Patel, Hibiscus sabdariffa: An ideal yet under-exploited candidate for nutraceutical applications, Biomedicine & Preventive Nutrition, Volume 4, Issue 1, 2014, Pages 23-27, ISSN 2210-5239
2. Montalvo-González, Efigenia, Zuamí Villagrán, Sughey González-Torres, at al. 2022. "Physiological Effects and Human Health Benefits of Hibiscus sabdariffa: A Review of Clinical Trials" Pharmaceuticals 15, no. 4: 464. https://doi.org/10.3390/ph15040464
3. V. H. Shruthi, C. T. Ramachandra, Food Bioactives, “Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) Calyces: A Potential Source of Natural Color and Its Health Benefits.” Apple Academic Press, 2019: 22.
4. Allison L. Hopkins, Marnie G. Lamm, Janet L. Funk, Cheryl Ritenbaugh, Hibiscus sabdariffa L. in the treatment of hypertension and hyperlipidemia: A comprehensive review of animal and human studies, Fitoterapia, Volume 85, 2013, Pages 84-94, ISSN 0367-326X
5. Shuzhen Wang, Ting Zeng, Shuang Zhao, et al. Multifunctional health-promoting effects of oolong tea and its products, Food Science and Human Wellness, Volume 11, Issue 3, 2022, Pages 512-523, ISSN 2213-4530
6. A review on the isolation and structure of tea polysaccharides and their bioactivities, Food Hydrocoll., 25 (2011), pp. 144-149, 10.1016/j.foodhyd.2010.04.010
7. K. Hosoda, M.F. Wang, M.L. Liao, et al. Antihyperglycemic effect of oolong tea in type 2 diabetes, Diabetes Care, 26 (2003), pp. 1714-1718
8. J. Liu, C.G. Meng, Y.H. Yan, et al. Structure, physical property and antioxidant activity of catechin grafted Tremella fuciformis polysaccharide, Int. J. Biol. Macromol., 82 (2016), pp. 719-724
9. T. Guo, C. Ho, X. Zhang, et al. Oolong tea polyphenols ameliorate circadian rhythm of intestinal microbiome and liver clock genes in mouse model, J. Agr. Food Chem., 67 (2019), pp. 11969-11976
10. Lestari W, Hasballah K, Listiawan MY, Sofia S. Coffee by-products as the source of antioxidants: a systematic review. F1000Res. 2022 Feb 23;11:220. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.107811.1. PMID: 35646331; PMCID: PMC9123331.
11. Kieu Tran TM, Kirkman T, Nguyen M, et al.: Effects of drying on physical properties, phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacity of Robusta wet coffee pulp (Coffea canephora). Heliyon. 2020 Jul;6(7):e04498. 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04498.
