How could a wrongly prepared rose hip tea be "unsafe"?

Cafe Society
1

I just fixed me a cup of rose hip tea from a brand I’ve never used before, so I took a short look on the instructions. They roughly go like this (I’m translating from German):

(Emphasis mine)

The brand I used before had almost the same instructions. I don’t get it. What could make the tea unsafe if I don’t follow these instructions? The only ingredients are rose hip and hibiscus, and AFAIK they don’t contain caffeine. But even if I’m wrong, what worse could happen than maybe a relative high amount of caffeine if you let it steep too long?

2

Do you have the orignal German? I’m as puzzled as you are!

3

Raw rose hips contains a substance that can cause itching. Prolonged steeping in boiling water renders them non-itching. Hence, the caution to use bubbling boiling water and at least 5-8 minutes steeping.

'Cause and itchy throat is REALLY unpleasant!

4

That is weird. The only unsafe thing I know about rosehips is that they have prickles in them that have to be taken out (if you eat them they irritate your digestive tract), but steeping the tea for too long or too short a time wouldn’t make any difference there.

5

The itchy effect probably only occurs in some people and not all, but enough so that the caution needs to be on the box.

6

The original:

If it helps, the brand is Teekanne FixButte. The brand I formerly used was a no-name from Aldi.

About the itching: I know that fresh rosehip fruits can cause itches, we used to fool around with them a lot as kids . But I’ve never encountered or heard about itching from drinking rosehip tea, and it’s a rather common drink here, and I’ve been drinking it since I was a kid.

7

I browsed the tea company’s (Teekanne) website to solve this question, but the only relevant information I found was this page, where the same instructions are declared for **all **fruit and herbal teas (German only, see bottom of the page). Now I’m even more baffled. I could ask on the site, but I don’t want to give my personal info as demanded on their contact form.

8

All right, I think I’ve found the answer. Here’s an extract from a statement (German pdf) by the federal institute for risk assessment (Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung, I had no idea of its existence before):

So it seems that with their disclaimer, the tea companies want to cover their asses for the improbable, but possible case of a germ infection.

9

Hehehe.

10

If you get salmonella from drinking the tea, that’ll fix your butt right there. :smiley: