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Fresh sage herbal tea (hot or iced) is a tasty and refreshing beverage with a surprisingly natural sweetness. Dried sage teas are common, but I think using fresh sage leaves is even better if you have access to them.

Sage tea also has some surprising potential health benefits, amongst them is the apparent relief of excessive sweating or hyperhidrosis.

Growing Sage At Home

I have a guide coming up How To Grow Sage Indoors that covers this topic in-depth.

Is Sage Tea Safe to Drink?

Yes, sage tea and other culinary uses of sage are perfectly safe in normal amounts.

Sage is POSSIBLY UNSAFE when taken by mouth in high doses or for a long time. Some species of sage, such as common sage (Salvia officinalis), contain a chemical called thujone. Thujone can be poisonous if you get enough. This chemical can cause seizures and damage to the liver and nervous systems.

Pregnant women should also exercise caution with sage as Thujone can also bring on a women’s menstrual period.

If you have concerns, talk to a doctor or medical health professional.

Is Sage Tea Good For Stopping Excessive Sweating?

I’m not a doctor and I’m not here to give you medical advice.

Sage tea has been suggested as a tool to treat excessive sweating, also called hyperhidrosis. However, there is absolutely no concrete evidence or hard data to back this up so proceed with caution and talk to a medical health professional.

Despite all of the above caution, having a cup of fresh sage herbal tea or cooking with sage is likely not going to have any detrimental effects.

Are All Varieties of Sage Edible?

Nope. So if you’re out in nature foraging and you come across something that looks and smells like sage, you better make sure you can identify the exact type of sage you are dealing with.

Obviously the sage you buy in the grocery store or grow yourself from seed is perfectly edible.

There are over 900 varieties of sage out there, but only a few are edible and used for culinary purposes.

Preserving Fresh Sage Leaves

If you grow your own sage or buy it regularly, you might at some point end up with more than you can consume before it goes off.

Check out my guide here on the best ways of preserving fresh herbs:

7 Ways To Preserve Fresh Herbs

Sage is also so easy to dry. Just tie the ends in twine and hang it upside down for a week or so. Store in an airtight container.

A Note on Sweetener

I suggest honey here as an option to flavour your hot or iced fresh sage tea, but I really suggest you try it first without any honey sweetener at all.

Sage has a surprising and pleasant natural sweetness, most noticeable as an after-taste in the back of the throat when drinking. I rarely add honey to my fresh sage teas personally.

The Western diet is very high in sugar so it may be harder for you to taste this natural sweetness if you are dependant on added sugar, honey, or other sweeteners.

Let me know what you think of sage in the comments!