Nature is all around us. We come from nature and we can’t live without it. But did you know that humans have known about nature’s ability to help promote wellness for thousands of years?
NudeHerbs is an Australian-owned company that makes vegan herbal and floral tonics using ancient recipes. Furthermore, the company is based here in Melbourne. You could say that NudeHerbs is bringing nature back to our modern urban world. So how do they do it?
Let’s go back a few (thousand) steps….
Shahr-e Sukhteh, or The Burnt City, was home to an ancient civilisation dating back to c. 3200-2350 BCE in south-east Iran. Back then, it was Mesopotamia and home to Bronze Age culture. Deities were also revered during time. In particular, Nabu was the god of wisdom and the goddess Gula was associated with healing.
To illustrate the importance of deities at that time, a temple was entirely built out of lapis lazuli (a deep blue rock) in The Burnt City to honour the goddess Inanna; one of the most important deities of the Mesopotamian age. The city was also a bustling trade centre at its peak. Fascinating stuff!
When you think about it, this was a time when artificial foods, sweeteners and preservatives did not exist. While this civilisation embraced their deities, they also revered their wellbeing in daily life. So, plants were used for medicinal purposes in order to purify the body and promote health and wellness. To achieve this, freshly brewed flowers and herbs were mostly used.
Fast-forward to the 21st Century
Dr Ali Karami is a research and development scientist, plus the founder of NudeHerbs. As a child, he watched his parents garden together in harmony and they would talk about the importance of health. He gradually became to understand that ancient recipes existed in his family which were passed down from generation to generation. It’s exciting to think about how far back these family recipes may stretch back to.
Once Dr Karami moved to Australia, he started a farm where he could grow the ingredients to make these family recipes. After toiling away for some time – and battling droughts – Dr Karami grew much of the herbs and flowers needed to produce his first batch of NudeHerbs vegan tonics.
Sticking to the recipe is Dr Karami’s secret ingredient
In order to stay true to his family’s generations-old recipes, Dr Karami steered away from unnatural, synthetic compounds and avoided flavoured water and sugar. Instead, Dr Karami stuck to his family’s legacy and set about brewing flowers and herbs to create three distinct products with three targeted functions – Focus, Cleanse and Relax.
By sticking to these recipes, Dr Karami ensured he created a product that could help promote “the wealth of health”. In addition, NudeHerbs contain at least 90% of Australian ingredients and are cased in recyclable glass bottles and lids. The labels are stunning and embody the essence of that 5,000-year-old wellness wisdom.
So what do these tonics taste like?
For someone who loves drinking water, smoothies, tea and coffee, I was keen to try these vegan tonics. I don’t drink soft drink, manufactured juices or alcohol, so I was excited to try these tonics as an alternative to my small rotation of preferred drinks.
Firstly, I tried Focus on a day when I was quite busy at work. Focus is brewed with a combination of gingko, turmeric, Siberian ginseng, sage, rosemary and green tea and I found the taste refreshing, and subtle. The flavours were delicately balanced to avoid an over-powering taste. I thoroughly enjoyed this one as it promotes power, wisdom, peace and love embodied by those goddesses past.
Next up was Relax. If you love mango flavour and want to calm the body then I highly recommend this one. There is a mix of lemon balm, passionflower, holy basil, damiana (a small, yellow aromatic flower from a small, woody shrub), hops and hibiscus. Think – a mango taste with a hint of berry-like flavour. It’s easy to feel the pressures of the day ease once you pop the cap on this vegan tonic.
Finally, it was time to Cleanse the system with a tonic of dandelion, nettle, coriander, marjoram and ginger. This gives you an instant, peppery zing that you’d expect from the ginger. The taste is, again, well-balanced and enjoyable to drink without being too harsh on the tastebuds. It’s like a laid-back lemonade without the sickly sweetness. Back in the day, this particular tonic gave a detoxifying option to those who wanted to “say goodbye to bad choices”. This rings true in our current urban times when we have a tendency to over-indulge on those unhealthy foods and drink choices.
Learn more about Dr Ali Karami and his herbal and floral tonics at the NudeHerbs website and find your nearest stockist here. Or, you can make a purchase online for a single bottle, three-packs, six-packs or dozen packs.
Disclaimer: Justine de Jonge of Fire & Tea was gifted one bottle of each tonic for the purpose of this review. Justine de Jonge did not receive any payments in exchange for the review posted here. Justine de Jonge is not a health professional and any views expressed in this review were based on her experiences only.
