Air Tea Kettle Review: Meet Christina Winters of Wych's Bloom

Our good friend and herbalist Christina Winter's has been kind enough to try the Air Tea Kettle and share her review with us! She is an educator and plant advocate who shares her wisdom regularly on social media and in-person with her workshops and events. Be sure to check out her website to view her offerings at Wych's Bloom.

Watch her full video here, or read the transcript below:

"I am here today to share with you Air Tea. My friend Jeremy, the founder of Air Tea, was kind enough to send me a sample of his product and I've been playing around with this a little bit and I wanted to share it with all of you. 

Air Tea gently warms herbs to release their natural vapors so you're not using smoke or water. We're simply using heat but you're using heat below burning so that you can breathe in the plants natural aromatic compounds. So we're really focusing on the aromatic qualities of a plant.

And how would you use something like this? So a couple of things that I start to think about, particularly as respiratory season or cold and flu season comes up, is plants that can help you breathe easier when you're congested, things that might clear the lungs, things like eucalyptus, catnip, maybe a little thyme, but there are also some great herbs that when we talk about the cephalic phase, again, that's when our olfactory senses and our taste buds, but in this case really our smell senses, activate the brain and help prime the body to receive certain medicines.

Whether it's digestive and we're working on the vagus nerve or it's working on the central nervous system. So some things I think about are things like chamomile that might help you unwind or rose that might lift your mood, or something like lemon balm that can be bright and beautifully aromatic. But also, really calming so that balance between sort of awakening the senses but also keeping you really calm.

Another thing you could think about when you think about using a product like Air Tea is something like Tulsi or Thyme. Things that can help wake up the immune defenses. Again, activating that cephalic phase of healing.

So I might use something like Air Tea with herbs like tulsi and thyme as I'm also drinking thyme tea. So I'm using all my senses. I'm drinking the tea, I'm inhaling the aroma. All compounds of the plant and really enhancing healing.

Air Tea comes in this beautiful package. I love the box that it came in the instructions are super simple. You get this base and this jar and again for those of you who are joining late, Air Tea works by gently warming up herbs to release their aromatic compounds and use that as a form of healing. And it heats just below burning, so we're not worried about actually damaging the herbs. There is this really tiny little case that we're going to put herbs in.

One of the things that was really compelling to me when Jeremy and I were talking, is how few herbs you actually need to use. So it's a really efficient process.

So today, just to play around with something, with something like calm and relaxing, I've got a big project I need to do today. I'm a little anxious about how much I have to execute before I pick the kids up. I just want to stay focused, but I also want to stay calm. So what did I think about something uplifting and calming? And so I'm going to use rose today. I'm going to use a little smidge of rose petals. Some of you guys asked me about the Rose petals. I do collect rose petals from my garden and dry them. It's a really simple process. You can see how little I took.

And then chamomile. I don't know if you guys know this, but Chamomile's Greek name actually translates to "Earth apple." And if you ever get the opportunity before you have a cup of chamomile tea, smell the chamomile flowers. I think that they smell like some of the sweetest, most beautiful apples I've ever smelled. So this idea that Air Tea can actually create a sensation where I get to smell this and take in the herbs through my olfactory system, activate the cephalic phase to create this sense of calm again.

Maybe I could use it for respiratory. I could use things like eucalyptus or. Maybe some thyme or catnip to clear the senses, work on the immune system. These are all great ways to activate the cephalic phase. Also help the respiratory system when it's in a little bit of distress. So put a little tiny pinch of herbs, a little bit of chamomile. A little bit of rose, I'm going to cover it here and there are only a few settings here. I'm just going to adjust the temperature and heat this up a little bit. And I'm going to wait about 45 seconds for the vapors to start to release from those, for those aromatic compounds to come into my home and for me to be able to breathe them in again. 

I can't recommend Air Tea enough. Jeremy, the founder is really accessible and wonderful to talk to and has this great idea about another way for us to receive medicine from plants. You know, we talk about having to scenes. Those are. Teas that you have, herbal teas that you have in herbalism, we call them to Saints, tinctures, steams, and now we have this air vaporization that I think is a really wonderful way to enhance healing, to really activate the cephalic phase, particularly when we want really deep healing, but also really nice way to relax, clear the lungs if you're congested or actually augment the immune system. Really kick started if you're starting to feel sick. 

So check out Air Tea, I know I'm doing a big plug but it was really generous of Jeremy to give this to me, asked me to try it, give him some field notes along the way. So over the next couple of months I'm going to be playing around with this, talking to you guys about this. If you want me to try some herbs out, I'd love to.

I've got some lemon balm today, some eucalyptus, some tulsi (Holy basil), some catnip. A bunch of herbs that I really put some thought into and thought would be really wonderful in terms of pulling up those aromatic compounds.

What are some plants that I really wouldn't want to use? Any plants that are really resinous, Things like pine, frankincense, sage, This could be really harsh. And I wouldn't really want to inhale them too deeply in the lungs. It could actually be harmful.

So really just the the plants that have like nice aromatic compounds to them that release into the air. There could be a gentle way for me to breathe in different forms of healing again, whether we're clearing congestion, creating a sense of calm, or augmenting the immune system, really trying to activate the immune system. As we take other medicine to try to heal ourselves.

So I hope you guys enjoyed this. Feel free to ask any questions. Go check out Air Tea, ask Jeremy some questions. And I think it's always fun when entrepreneurs share their businesses and talk to each other about their ideas. And he and I had a really nice long conversation on the phone a couple of months ago, and I'm really excited to try this out.

So thanks for listening, everybody. Have an awesome weekend and thanks for following along." - Christina Winters, Wych's Bloom