Sambong: The Plant Version of the Yamashita Treasure
Several months ago, my mom was beside herself with delight when she discovered a sambong plant growing off one side of our sari-sari store. With the way she proudly announced it to us over breakfast, you’d think she found the Yamashita treasure.
"Sambong plant, we're so lucky!" she said. According to her, sambong cannot be planted or cultivated-it will just grow anywhere and the best you can do is to keep it alive and stronger until it matures.
She swears by its life-extending powers, stating that her father used to drink sambong tea every morning before doing chores on the farm. He never got tired or hungry in the morning, never got fat, and lived to a ripe old age, thanks to sambong. I swear, with the way my mom markets this herb to us, you'd think it's like she discovered the potion of eternal youth with a bit of Kankunis-like slimming effect thrown in.
Sambong, or blumea camphor, is a woody herb that can grow up to 1 ½ to 3 meters tall. It has a rich green color and has hairy leaves with a coarse underside. The sambong at our house is now taller than me, and I'm five feet tall. It's typically used as a diuretic (meaning it makes you pee and flush the toxins out) and is prescribed for people suffering from edema, high blood pressure, hypertension, rheumatism, colds, fever, dysentery, sore throat and kidney failure. That's quite a lot from this humble, sometimes random, plant!
The sambong has since then become my mom's cure for all. Dysmenorrhea? Drink sambong! Tummy ache? Sambong provides an instant cure! Constipated? Sambong will flush it out! Who knows? I just drink it when she gives it to me, it's good for me anyway. There are recommended ways of cooking sambong or making sambong tea (chopped, shredded, pounded with coconut oil...), but all we do is pluck some leaves and boil them whole in water for 5 minutes. Sambong tea by itself has a pleasant, clean and sweetish taste that makes it easy to drink even without adding anything in it. It also makes for a very fragrant tea bath, and it's only second to citrus leaves for me when it comes to tea baths.
Sambong is also relatively easy to take care of: Just make sure to water it regularly, pluck off the bugs munching on its leaves, and prop it up when the bark is still soft and young. I hear sambong and pre-packaged sambong tea is out in the market these days and is very popular, but in my opinion, nothing beats the fresh leaves of sambong. So take a good look at the new plants growing in your garden-one of them may turn out to be this amazing herb!
Meia Hernandez, Web content writer
Meia is professional web content writer who has an affinity for all things green, shuttling between her mother's garden & her father's farm in the province while growing up. She considers herself a perpetual gardening newbie, learning most of her knowledge of all things green from experiences.
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april_cute | Jul 26th 2010 7:39PM
making sambong tea: put some sambong leaves into a cup. put fresh boiling water and leave it for 1- 2 mins. or 2- 3 mins. add sugar or lemon juice if desired. recommended dosage is 3 time a day