Alternative beverage: Calamansi, Misai Kucing and Soursop Leaves

I always find it fascinating when you can blend different leaves and fruits and obtain a delicious beverage whilst being able to reap lots of health benefits.  I always try to go local, what we have had traditionally and rediscovering what our ancestors knew but didn't have the science to back it up.  My latest concoction is the mix of fresh calamansi juice with tea  from a blend of misai kucing (cat's whiskers) leaves and flower and soursop leaves.  I add a little bit of sugar - sometimes pure cane sugar, sometimes rock sugar and sometimes just regular sugar and serve chilled.  The end result is a delicious refreshing drink that quenches my thirst whilst providing me with lots of good stuff - definitely not medicine-tasting.

So, what plants do you need in your garden: calamansi (lima kasturi), cat's whiskers (misai kucing) and soursop (durian belanda) - all three grow well in our weather and flourishes when grown organically.  The soursop fruit is also prized so you can get double benefit by planting this in your garden.  The soursop tree can get to be tall but growth can be controlled with pruning.  The misai kucing is a shrub with beautiful lavender flowers (another colour is white flowers) so can be located almost anywhere and can be used as a border shrub.  Pruning it to shape it also encourages new growth and more flowers.  The calamansi tree grows to about 3-4m tall and regular pruning would encourage new shoots and flowers as well as allow you to shape the tree.

To start with, harvest the leaves and flowers and chop them up and dry.  Get soursop leaves, preferably from the fourth leave from the end of the branch which are mature and a dark green in colour.  This contains the most nutrients.  Chop them up and dry them.  You can then mix the two to provide a blended tea, the proportions of it depends of taste you desire.  If you are making your own, it is great to experiment the ratio mix to your taste.

Why do I like the this beverage so much? From my research I found that amongst the benefits are :  from the misai kucing, I get the blood cleansing, sugar regulator, high blood pressure therapy, acids like uric acid cleansing; from soursop leaves, the main thing I look for is the cancer preventive properties and from calamansi, all those great vitamins.  By growing this at the farm in an all organic environment, I do not have to worry about the introduction of toxins to a delicious, healthy drink.  For a low-cost, power-packed drink, this is a great option for me.  This is simple enough to make that I think it can go on everyone's drink list.  I hope you will be inspired to try it :)