Licorice root tea

Licorice root tea is a herbal infusion — a tisane — made by steeping the dried, shredded or sliced root of the licorice plant in hot water. Like other tisanes it is not made from the tea plant Camellia sinensis at all, so it contains no caffeine whatsoever; "tea" here just means a hot-water infusion. The cup is amber to deep gold, medium-bodied and remarkably, almost startlingly sweet — licorice root can taste many times sweeter than sugar — with a rounded, savoury-sweet aroma of anise and molasses over a faint woody, earthy edge. Because it is naturally intensely sweet without any sugar, licorice root is one of the most widely used bases and sweetening "blenders" in the caffeine-free herbal-tea world, added in small amounts to round out and sweeten peppermint, ginger, chamomile and countless "detox," throat and after-dinner blends; drunk on its own it is a mellow, sweet, warming cup taken across the Mediterranean, the Middle East, China and India to soothe the throat and settle the stomach.