Moringa oleifera carries a handful of nicknames that say something about the plant: horseradish tree for its sharp roots, drumstick tree for its long bean pods, and miracle tree for the reputation built around its leaves over centuries of use. The tea is made from those leaves alone, hand-picked and dried, and it steeps into a cup whose colour drifts from light green to a yellowish ocher depending on how long it sits in the water.
The tree is native to the Himalayan foothills and grows widely across Africa, and it grows quickly enough that nearly every part of it gets used: beans, roots, seeds and leaves. Fresh leaves can be boiled into a dish not unlike spinach, or dried for tea, and that speed of growth has made moringa a plant people keep an eye on as a practical, sustainable crop. In the cup, the flavour runs earthy and honey-sweet, with a herbal, faintly medicinal aroma and a slightly drying finish; brewers who add lemon, mint or ginger will find the tea takes to all three easily. It contains no caffeine.
The plant has a long history in Ayurvedic medicine, with accounts of its use in India reaching back to around 2000 BC. Healers of that era worked it into remedies meant to sharpen the mind and support a clear complexion, and both nobility and ordinary households are said to have kept it close at hand. It was also said to be given to warriors before battle, in the belief that it built strength and resilience and eased the pain of a body worn down by fighting. Traditional use built on that history holds that moringa leaf tea can support digestion, energy and immune function, and that the leaves are a source of calcium, iron, magnesium and B vitamins; these are long-standing folk claims rather than proven effects.
To brew it, bring water to a boil, remove it from the heat, and stir in about a tablespoon of leaves for every two cups of water. Let it steep for five to ten minutes, until the liquid moves from greenish-yellow toward yellowish-brown, then strain. It suits both hot and cold serving, with honey, lemon, ginger or mint all reasonable additions.
