Grapefruit Tea – Home Cough Remedy

This grapefruit tea is a wonderful home cough remedy. It’s a warm, soothing way to help get rid of your cough! It’s sweetened with honey and flavored with cinnamon and fresh ginger, which are known to help with coughs. This immune-boosting tea is also paleo-friendly.

I’m doing something just a little different today – a home remedy. I absolutely hate going to the doctor unless it’s totally necessary. I also don’t like to take medicine – again, unless truly necessary! I’m much more into home remedies.

I haven’t posted in a few weeks due to my son or I practically always being sick with colds, childhood diseases or whatever. I figured we’re probably not alone.

So if you have – or are recovering from – a cold and have that annoying, never-ending cough, this grapefruit tea is for you.

If you’re not into tea and just want some delicious grapefruit to eat, try my Ginger and Brown Sugar Broiled Grapefruit.

The ingredients

All of the ingredients in this tea recipe were chosen because they’re helpful in getting rid of a cough and they all help boost the immune system. If you want to add different spices or flavors, feel free to experiment!

Of course, none of these ingredients can cure a cold or cough. They can just help improve the systems of a cold.

Ginger

Fresh ginger is one of my favorite ingredients when I’m feeling sick. I really can tell a difference when I use it!

It’s anti-inflammatory, and studies suggest that some of those anti-inflammatory compounds can relax membranes in the airways, which can help reduce coughing.

Don’t skip this ingredient unless you really have to, and use as much of it as you can stand. It does add spiciness to the tea, so if you don’t like that, don’t go overboard with the amount you add.

And if you have some left over, this Fresh Pineapple Ginger Juice would also be great when you’re trying to get over a cold.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon can help improve nasal congestion, coughing, infections, and the common cold.

I highly recommend using Ceylon cinnamon. I use Cassia, which is the normal type you find at the grocery store, for baking.

I buy Ceylon cinnamon in bulk from Amazon. Be warned that it’s quite a bit more expensive than Cassia cinnamon, but when you buy a large bag, it’s not so much more expensive per ounce.

It has a lighter and less bitter taste. Why I use that cinnamon in drinks like this, which call for a lot of cinnamon, is that eating too much of the more common type, Cassia, does have several side effects (you can read more about that here).

Just 1 teaspoon of Cassia could be enough to put you over the daily limit. The amount depends on your body weight.

Honey

This one is well proven to help with coughs. Do not give it to children under 1 year! To get the full benefits, you should make sure to use raw honey and not add your honey to hot liquids.

In this recipe, you mix together a bit of grapefruit tea concentrate, remove from the heat and add honey. Then you add the concentrate to your cup and add water to that.

If you don’t have time to let your concentrate cool before adding the honey, just add the concentrate to your cup, pour room temperature water on top, and then add in honey to taste.

Grapefruit

Grapefruit juice can help relieve sore throats and soothe coughs. For full benefits, I recommend using freshly squeezed grapefruit juice over bottled juice.

Have grapefruit juice leftover? It’d be great for this Grapefruit Paloma – whenever you’re feeling healthy again!

Grapefruit peel?

Speaking of how this grapefruit tea tastes – you’ve got two ways to make it. With or without grapefruit peel.

I much prefer it without the peel. But as a home remedy, it’s not quite as effective without it.

It’s much tastier without the peel. If you use the grapefruit peel, it’s quite bitter. Some people will enjoy it as is but I’m guessing some will want some extra honey.

But honey still won’t cut all the bitterness. If you’re interested in why that is, check out my post on walnut butter.

If you want a more delicious tea that you would sip on, just because it’s delicious and the ingredients can help boost your immune system, don’t throw in the grapefruit peel after juicing it.

If you don’t use the peel, the grapefruit taste isn’t that strong. It’s really more of a cinnamon drink. But really super tasty!

Alternatives to grapefruit

You can always sub a lemon or one and a half lemons for one of the grapefruits as lemon is also very good for a cough. That will hopefully reduce the bitterness just a little bit.

I’ve also heard that fresh pineapple juice is great for a cough, although I haven’t tried it. You could try using fresh pineapple juice in the mix and that would reduce the bitterness as well.

You can also water this down much more than I recommend and add more honey if need be. When you’re sick, drinking more water is never a bad idea so feel free to add as much or as little of this concentrate to your cup as you like and drink up!

Warning! Warning!

Now, of course, I need to leave a disclaimer. If you are very sick, please see a doctor. Home remedies are great, but sometimes you do need medication.

Please be careful that these ingredients, especially grapefruit, don’t interfere with any medications you’re already taking. Grapefruit interferes with a LOT of different medicines. If you’re on any medication, even if it’s just allergy medicine, please read this list.

That being said, I really hope you’ll give this tea (perhaps with a bit of added Rosemary Simple Syrup?) a try the next time you have a stubborn, nagging cough that won’t go away. Now that I’ve tried this and have experienced first-hand how well it helps cough, I’ll be making this every time we get sick! I think I’ll also try this Starbucks Medicine Ball.

I only drank one batch of this grapefruit tea over two days and a cough that had been bothering me for a month was completely gone. I hope this tea can help you, too!

Even if you’re not sick, I highly recommend this grapefruit tea, without the grapefruit peel, as a delicious way to boost your immune system.

If you’re interested, I also have a recipe for Feel Better Green Juice here on the blog which I have to say, helps immensely when you’re feeling sick and need a pick me up. 🙂 This Carrot Juice should also do the trick!

5 from 28 votes

Grapefruit Tea - Home Cough Remedy

Author Erin Dooner

Servings 4 servings

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Prep Time 2 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 12 minutes mins

Ingredients

• ▢ 2 large grapefruits
• ▢ 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• ▢ 1 large knob of ginger, about 1", thinly sliced
• ▢ 1 cup water
• ▢ 1/4 cup honey + more to serve

Instructions

• Slice grapefruits in half and squeeze out as much juice as you can into a medium-sized pot. If you don't mind quite a bit of bitterness, throw the squeezed out peels into the pot as well. If doing that, add about another cup of water. Add the cinnamon, sliced ginger and water.
• Bring to a boil then turn down the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
• Remove from the heat and strain to remove the grapefruit peels, if using, and ginger. Let cool to 95° F (35 °C) or lower and stir in the honey (this is to preserve the benefits from raw honey). You can also just add the concentrate to a mug, add water, which will cool down the tea concentrate, and then add your honey.
• Store this concentrate in the fridge and add about a 1/4 of the recipe to a large mug and top with hot water. Add more honey as needed and feel better soon!

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