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Drinks and Beverages

Ranawara Tea : Sri Lankan Herbal Tea

written by Amila Gamage Wickramarachchi November 21, 2019
Ranawara Tea

Do you know what is Ranawara and how to use it as part of your meal?Yes,you can easily use Ranawara flowers to make herbal tea and ranawara leaves to make a delicious leafy dish.In this post I want to share how to make Ranawara Herbal tea from scratch.

Ranawara tea is one of the popular herbal teas from Sri Lanka due to its many health benefits. In Sri Lanka, we are blessed with herbal tea varieties which are passed down from generation to generation. Some of the herbal teas are used as home remedies for some ailments. Ginger Coriander tea is such herbal tea which is believed to have power of preventing common cold.

While Ranawara leaves are good as a mallum, it’s flowers are used to prepare herbal tea which is free from caffeine and with many health benefits.

What is Ranawara?

In case if you do not know what is Ranawara,let me explain a bit.As per wikipedia,the botanical name for Ranawara is Senna auriculata.It is also known as Cassia auriculata. It is well grown in dry zones.Therefore in Sri Lanka,you can find Ranawara trees/plants along the coastal and dry zones such as Hambantota. Senna auriculata is also found in dry zones of India.

How to use Ranawara?

Ranawara has many health benefits.Ranawara leaves or Senna leaves are used as mallum in Sri Lanka.Mallum is a leafy side cooked with coconut.You can cook Ranawara leaves with grated coconut,green chili and onion to prepare a delicious dish which is healthy and flavourful.

Other than that,Ranawara flowers are beneficial in many ways.Dried Ranawara flowers (Senna flowers) are boiled with water to make a herbal drink.

Health Benefits of Ranawara Herbal Tea

Ranawara Tea
Ranawara Flowers (රණවරා මල් )

Ranawara flowers and tea has its health benefits to the body which helps anyone to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. Below are some of the popular health benefits of this tea.

  • free from caffeine. It is a natural drink which helps to hydrate your body.
  • helps detoxifying the body naturally.
  • promotes blood circulation.
  • well known for its ability to control sugar levels.
  • purifies the blood and popular as herbal tea that promotes clear skin
  • Reduce body odour and body heat

How to prepare Ranawara Tea?

Well, nowadays it is really easy to prepare a cup of Ranawara Tea within few minutes just by adding boiling water to herbal tea bags. There are many reputed tea brands available in Sri Lanka and online which is easy to buy these tea bags. Nothing to hide, I too buy such tea packets whenever we visit Sri Lanka. 🙂

However, below recipe is on how you can prepare a cup of Ranawara tea from scratch. The flowers of this plant are yellow in colour and those can easily make others cheerful. These trees are widely grown in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, specially in Hamabantota District. Beautiful Ranawara trees full of flowers are a common scenery whenever we visit southern province of Sri Lanka.

Ranawara
Ranawara

Luckily, there is a Ranawara tree in my mother in law’s place, so I could easily capture the photos to prepare this post with actual experience on preparing Ranawara Tea from scratch from picking the flowers from our Ranawara tree.

The time I visited Sri Lanka for a holiday last year, I found my mother in law was drying some Ranawara flowers for preparing this herbal tea. In order to get the best taste, traditionally Ranawara flowers are sun dried for few days. When the flowers are dried, then it is time to boil with water in order to prepare the tea.

Ranawara flowers
Sun dry Ranawara flowers to make this herbal tea

Recipe: Ranawara Tea (Herbal Tea from Sri Lanka)

Sri Lankan Herbal Tea

Ingredients

1 tspn of Dried Ranawara flowers

2-3 cups of Water

Pieces of jaggery as a sweetener

Method:

Wash and clean dried Ranawara flowers. In a pot add water together with Ranawara flowers. Boil in low flame until the water boils and the liquid gets dark in colour.

Serve this herbal tea as a hot drink with a piece of jaggery.

Do you like this herbal tea? Please share your experiences with such herbal teas.

Update: I revised the recipe above by reducing the quantity of Ranawara Flowers. (Based on the comments/feedback received). Please note that in this recipe, I am referring to dried flowers themselves, not powdered Ranawara.

Herbal teaRanawara
8 comments
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Amila Gamage Wickramarachchi

Amila Gamage is the blogger behind Food Corner. She shares her cooking adventures in this blog. Apart from recipes, you will also find travel, health and kitchen inspirations in this blog. She started writing this blog in 2011 and still continuing.

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8 comments

Heather Beling June 9, 2020 - 5:43 am

Amila thanks for telling me how to make Ranawara tea, I appreciate it very much. I live in Melbourne and have a big tree that is full of beautiful yellow flowers at the moment. It flowers in late Autumn.

Reply
Amila Gamage Wickramarachchi June 9, 2020 - 4:13 pm

Oh that’s great to hear that you have a Ranawara tree.Please dry some flowers for making this herbal tea.

Reply
Dr.ashen de silva December 2, 2020 - 12:25 pm

amila are you nuts? This recipe is completely wrong and this could potentially lead to overdosing. The real recipe is 1 Tablespoon to 1 cup of water. Don’t write things just because you can, get yourself informed and write things. Be responsible.

Reply
Amila Gamage Wickramarachchi December 4, 2020 - 9:29 pm

Ashen, you mean 1 Tablespoon dried flowers to 1 cup of water?

On a side note: Be respectful when you share a comment. You can always share your feedback.But I am not crazy or as per you ‘not nuts’ when I write and publish an article. Further ,I will not publish any of your future comments if those are not decent.
Your are welcome to share your feedback in a proper language.

Reply
Thyagie February 26, 2022 - 9:53 pm

I do believe that the recipe is giving too strong a flavour. Perhaps less of the Ranawara to more water.

Reply
Amila Gamage Wickramarachchi March 14, 2022 - 6:06 pm

Thanks Thyagie, I will check and update the recipe quantities accordingly.

Reply
Madhumaya April 28, 2024 - 7:54 am

I am shocked too, like Dr. De Silva, at the proportions given in the recipe for the tea, and even more worried by the fact that even after 2 people have mentioned that the recipe proportions have to be changed, the recipe still seems too potent. When somebody publishes information on health/nutrition/mental health, it carries the immense responsibility of double-checking before publishing, or at least correct your mistakes when people express their concern. Herbal preparations can be potent and when there can be people who have no prior knowledge in herbal preparations follow your recipe, it can potentially cause great damage to them.
You expected language courtesy from the Dr. De Silva and threatened to not publish any of his future corrections of your negligence, you should also exhibit moral and factual responsibility and courtesy as a health blogger. You have to understand that blogging is not only pretty pictures and heart warming stories, the heart of the information in the blogs should not be potential to create harm for people, which is probably what the Dr. was worried about, rightfully so.
Even though this blog is old for you and you would have moved on to other blogs, it still shows up on search and there are still people, like me, reading it. I don’t think I have ever seen a tea recipe with its main ingredient measurements in terms of cups 🙂 .. So, please be a responsible blogger and go over this recipe once again for the sake of other readers. I am not sure if this comment would be published, but my only goal is to prevent any future potential harm/side effects. Thank you.

Reply
Amila Gamage Wickramarachchi April 30, 2024 - 9:20 pm

Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns in such a long comment. The recipe is updated with the right unit…..

Reply

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