Faroe Islands Wellness Tea: The Perfect Healing Blend

Forbes Lifestyle Travel Faroe Islands Wellness Tea: The Perfect Healing Blend Rona Berg Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I am a digital nomad covering travel with a focus on wellness and food Following Oct 30, 2023, 04:14pm EDT | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Rainbow on the coastal village of Gjogv, Eysturoy island, Faroe Islands getty The Faroe Islands feature one of lushest, most dramatic landscapes on the planet. With verdant slopes and steep cliffs stippled with roaring waterfalls, the tiny 18-island nation in the North Atlantic Ocean (between Iceland and Scotland) is a pristine paradise for hikers and birders.

Though there are few trees, and agriculture is a challenge, the soil yields a rich harvest of healing herbs and flowers unique to the remote destination, which, legend has it, is home to Hidden People (Huldufólk), elves who live beneath rocks or hills. Whether you believe in supernatural beings or not, it certainly seems that if they live anywhere, they would be drawn to this enchanting land where rainbows paint the sky with a clarity and radiance that is truly otherworldly. The Faroe Islands are not only stunningly picturesque, they are a profoundly peaceful place, home to a fascinating community of creative artists, filmmakers, designers, writers, chefs and craftspeople who pull artistry from nature and create new beauty in the old way—by hand.

Durita Hansen, founder, URT Tea, from the Faroe Islands Susanna Smith Johansen Durita Hansen is one of them. Hansen, a fresh-faced mother of three who looks younger than her 37 years, is based in the Faroese capital of Tórshavn, where she launched URT , a hand-crafted wellness tea brand made from wild herbs and flowers that she grows, forages and blends herself. URT offers three core teas, plus special seasonal varieties featuring plants that are only found on the Faroe Islands.

The pretty URT packages can be found in shops all over Torshavn, and the bright flavors and alluring aromas are unusual and utterly irresistible. “Plants in the Faroe Islands have their own unique taste, marked by the weather, wind, sea, insects and birds that surround them,” says Hansen. “The growing period here is long and the weather is harsh, so the plants tend to be robust, which determines their distinct flavor.

” MORE FOR YOU Ivanka Trump Helped Her Dad Lie About His Net Worth Two Months Later Starfield Continued Performance Is Kind Of Unbelievable Destiny 2 Developer Bungie Hit With Unexpected Undue Layoffs Here is my recent conversation with URT founder Durita Hansen. RB: Why is your company called URT? DH: “Urt” is simply “herb” in Faroese, and Faroese herbs are what we use in our teas. We have explored many acronyms for the three letters U-R-T, but haven’t settled on any final ones yet.

We plan on asking URT followers to describe URT with the three letters and maybe we’ll find some cool words that capture the feel of the tea. A cup of URT tea, made with herbs and flowers grown and foraged in the Faroe Islands. JOERGEN ASMUSSEN RB: What inspired you to make the tea? DH: In 2021 me and my middle son, Sirius, went on a two-month seminar stay on the island of Sandoy.

Even though I also loved herbal teas back then, it had never occurred to me that so many wonderful and healing herbs were growing right beneath our feet here in the Faroe Islands. More specifically, when I looked up the herb horsetail, everything shifted for me. I realized that this unassuming little fern was one of the oldest plants on the planet and that it had been used for its healing modalities for centuries (at least).

When I came home from the seminar, I found old Faroese books and articles at the local library and came to recognize the role herbs played in old Faroese customs. I realized that just as herbs had been used around the world as remedies for centuries, this had been the case in the Faroe Islands, and that this way of relating to nature had been forgotten or replaced by modern practices. RB: Do you think of this as wellness tea? How so? DH: To me herbal tea is an intrinsic part of well-being.

Herbal tea works by calming the body when you feel stressed, helps with digesting food, so that you don’t feel bloated and it brings you back to your center. The thing about tea, as opposed to coffee, is that you have to gear down in order to reap its benefits. It will not give you the charged feeling that coffee does, the well-being comes from within.

The wellness of the tea can not be forced. Faroese mint and a package of No. 3 URT tea Susanna Smith Johansen RB: What are the herbs and what health benefit does each have? What are your favorite herbs and why? DH: The herb that I use the most in my teas is the queen of the plant kingdom, a super food, multivitamin that most people consider a weed.

It will sting you at first, but you can’t help but fall in love with this plant once you get to know it. It is stinging nettle , the herb to which attributable benefits are too numerous to count. Although stinging nettle has been weeded out in many places in the Faroe Islands, it still grows wild in some areas.

Two of my main blends contain mint . The mint I have chosen for the blends is Mentha Piperita . We have a wild Faroese mint and I am trying to grow it in my garden, but it’s a very delicate and noninvasive plant, so it’s hard to produce a lot.

Also, data on the Faroese mint is scarce, so it’s harder to get authorization to use it in my main blends. Mint aids in relaxation, digestion, fighting bacterial infection and colds. Horsetail , as I mentioned before, was my introduction to the benefits of wild Faroese herbs.

Horsetail has been used for brittle hair and nails. It contains silicic acid which can help strengthen the immune system, aid in calcium uptake and prevent blood clots among other things. Chamomile and pineapple weed , which go under the same name in my blends, are well known for their relaxing properties, for reducing stress, promoting good sleep and aiding in digestion.

Heather and elderberry are the tiny flowers that liven up the blends and make them so beautiful. The antioxidants in elderberry have suspected benefits such as boosting the immune system, lowering blood pressure levels, and reducing blood sugar levels. Heather also aids in sleep and fights colds.

For added taste and also to aid in digestion I have chosen three seeds, fennel, anise and cumin . They add a tint of licorice, but these plants do not grow wild in the Faroe Islands. Time out for tea JOERGEN ASMUSSEN When I make specialty blends I am able to use other Faroese herbs which are not readily available here.

These include yarrow, wild thyme, meadowsweet, tufted vetch and fireweed among others. Since the Faroe Islands is a small place, there are some plants that are endangered. One plant that I would love to experiment with though is a plant that went extinct in Faroes, but is being kept alive in gardens, not only here but around the world.

It is a native Faroese dandelion taraxacum faeroense that only grew here. There is a coffee-like tea I like to make from the root of dandelion and I plan on making it from the Faroese Dandelion. RB: Is there a standard style of Faroese tea? DH: URT is the first authorized Faroese herbal tea brand, which means I have no other tea blends to compare them to.

But there are, of course, people in the Faroes who utilize Faroese herbs, for example, as herbal teas. The aim of URT’s social media account is to inspire more experimentation and love for wild Faroese nature. Written material about the Faroese herbal remedies is hard to come by, so when I want to learn about the native plants here, I look to Iceland.

Many of the herbs that grow wild in Iceland are the same as here in the Faroes and I can find more information. Durita Hansen with a cup of steaming URT tea. JOERGEN ASMUSSEN RB: Do you forage or grow the plants yourself? Are they organic? DH: I grow a few of the plants myself on a plot of land in Tórshavn, others I get permission from the owners of the land to gather.

There is no organic regulatory authority in the Faroe Islands, so Faroese products are unable to get the organic stamp of approval, but there are no chemicals used in URT’s production. The three main blends are a mix of Faroese herbs and herbs from abroad, but the specialty blends are exclusively Faroese. RB: Is this a family business? DH: The family is involved in all aspects of production, from sowing to gathering, from mixing to packaging each individual tea bag.

Distribution and accounting as well. At the moment my spouse is also working full time with me on the business. But we would love to add more people, especially during the harvesting season, which is two to three intense months a year.

RB: Have you always been entrepreneurial? How? DH: I have never dealt well with authority or being told what to do. This temperament together with an open mind has naturally resulted in a dislike for school and a need for independence. From a young age I knew I wanted to be independent.

As a teenager I designed, sewed and sold my first order of aprons and oven mitts, later I designed underwear and costumes and dreamed of becoming a fashion designer. Many great ideas panned out in my 20s and early 30s. A lack of confidence was the biggest contributor.

But all the while my urge to return to nature and my sought-after excuse to get my hands dirty lead me to build the company that would ultimately align most to my interests and as a result serve in the best way possible. Illustrations and packaging design by Durita Hansen and team. all rights reserved RB: Did you always love tea? DH: Coffee was always the drug of choice, but after discovering the benefits of herbal tea, I started replacing daily cups of coffee with herbal tea instead.

I discovered that cravings and hunger were often better soothed with a cup of tea, as opposed to that rush of sugar or coffee. Now I deliberately use coffee as a stimulant for focus and creativity and herbal tea for finding my center again, calming my nervous system and aiding my digestion. RB: You are a mother of three.

How do you balance that with running a business? DH: I work from home and I just had my third child, so it can get a bit stressful. In addition to gathering, drying, mixing and packaging tea I also run the Social media part, which can be time-consuming. But since I have built a business around what I love to do, while also being able to be with my kids, which is the most important part, everything mostly falls into place.

Hansen, wild-foraging herb and flowers Susanna Smith Johansen RB: Tell us about your new blend for the holidays. DH: Frequently I get messages from customers who have gotten rid of long-lasting colds with our most popular blend, URT No. 3.

I chose the herbs for this blend intuitively and they seem to compliment each other well. The Christmas blend this year is a spin-off of this blend. I would like the Christmas blends to be a recurring tradition.

We did one last year and this year’s blend is a bit simpler. We used Meadowsweet, which has a very distinguishable scent as well as taste. RB: What are your hopes for the future of URT? DH: There are so many ways we could go with the business.

Firstly we want to serve the customers who already love our product. Social media is a big part of the business, where we can inspire a return to nature, as well as get inspired by the people. My hope is to see more people with a more unhurried approach to life, feet on the ground, hands in the dirt, getting in touch with nature by sensing and using the herbs here.

Maybe people from around the world also would love a taste of the Faroe Islands, in which case the world is our market for expansion. Follow me on LinkedIn . Check out my website .

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