He has spent a lifetime working with medicinal herbs and now Reginald Hamilton is hoping to share his secrets to good health over a cup of tea. Reginald Hamilton popularly knows as 'Reggie the herbs man' has opened a teahouse. He's taken his vast trove of knowledge of medicinal plants and combined them with the always charming tradition of taking a cup of tea, for an extraordinary experience right in the heart of the Southside. Keith visited to find out more.
Keith SwiftReporting,
In Reggie's Teahouse, the signs read like a roadmap to good health with warnings of no smoking, no obscene language, and no drinking...unless of course its tea.
Reginald Hamilton, Tea Master
"The main focus is to let them get a feel of something warm on their stomach in the morning rather than something cold, like you mentioned Coca Cola. There's not just Coca-Cola, there are like orange juice, we know the body needs an intake of orange juice because the body does not store vitamin C but one of the main thing for you to have in the morning is not a cold glass of juice but a glass of tea rather."
A warm glass of tea which you will be able to find daily at Reggie's Teahouse located just a short ways from the corner of Raccoon Street and the Boulevard. The Teahouse's namesake is Reginald Hamilton, who has 8 years experience in working with medicinal herbs. Reggie created the teahouse because he says we need more tea in our lives.
Reginald Hamilton,
"The concept of the teahouse is to just pretty much bring back tradition bush medicine; bring back healing in a sense. It's all about bringing back traditional medicine to the place and pushing off the teas."
Reggie stocked his teahouse with 48 different leaves from which he makes countless fresh brews to cure countless ailments. And forget what you heard, he says his teas defy bad taste and promote good health.
Reginald Hamilton,
"Teas have normally been known to be bad tasting due to the pychto representation maybe because the plant it comes from doesn't have a natural good taste. But more than likely I would say it represents a different scale in healing. It does not have a bitter taste, most of them, because it's the leaves that we retrieve the brewing from. It is the leaves and the leaves are the best part of the tree and so most of them do not have a bad taste. But not only that, most people would not like to take them naturally though the best way to take it up is natural; just by itself. Other than that, if you don't want to take it natural, there are sweeteners that you can drink with your tea. There are several sweeteners: you have a local syrup that I would push forward, you have the honey, and there is sugar. If you want to go in the line of sugar, there is brown sugar over white sugar. If you want to take milk, there is carnation or condensed that you can use. My main thing though is for you to take it natural."
Keith Swift,
Do you find that people want to drink tea and are coming here to do so?
Reginald Hamilton,
"I have gotten overwhelming support. My thing is that I am in the area of healing and I should say that my thing is to protect, prevent, and cure as well as to control symptoms and to hold off common illnesses that come on top of the body."
Keith Swift,
Such as?
Reginald Hamilton,
"Such as you know there are very simple illnesses that come on the body, like through climactic change you can catch a cold and a flu because of the breaking down of the immune system because of having a deficiency in some area where you're not maintaining a balance."
Keith Swift,
So you're saying that these teas can help us to protect, prevent, and cure?
Reginald Hamilton,
"Yeah that's right. What a tea normally does to you is to keeps building on the immune system. More than 2/3 of the time we have problem and faults in our body is when the organs break down. And when the organs break down its mean there is an inadequate consumption of water or a deficiency in managing the body where you don't get a good defense system worked up."
And along that line lies the reason why Reggie opened the teahouse. The tea business isn't exactly lucrative and Reggie says he isn't out to get rich. Rather for him, this is his way of helping people - the way he knows how to.
Reginald Hamilton,
"My main focus is not money. I always emphasize and I re-emphasize that focusing on work is mainly projection. I pride myself in working and I am in a field whereby I need to promote myself and see my people living. I love to heal people and love to see people feeling right. My main focus is to see that people receive from my through my business. But my main thing is to see that people get certain things lifted for betterment of health; that's promoting a healthy lifestyle."
And so forget about what you heard about apples, oranges, or bananas keeping the doctor away, Reggie says a cup of tea like this is what really keeps the doctor away...so here's to good health.
The Teahouse is located at 36 Raccoon Street. Through now until the grand opening on January 22nd Reggie is offering a promotion of a free cup of tea in the mornings from 6 until 10 and then again in the evenings from 3 until 6. Hamilton plans to eventually add imported teas to his menu. And if you are wondering, the price of a cup of tea will average around $1.75. Delivery service will also soon be available.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
Edited for the internet by Keith Swift
