How do herbs give medicinal properties into herbal tea/infusions?

[kjell159]

How do herbs give medicinal properties into herbal tea/infusions?

A lot of medicinally active compounds in herbs are non-polar. 
An example are terpenes (myrcene, caryophyllene, linalool, limonene, pinene, ...), compounds which are virtually insoluble in water. (a polar solvent) 

Tinctures use a mixture of water (H2O) and ethanol (C2H5OH) or water and glycerol to solute active compounds of herbs. 
Ethanol has both polar as apolar properties - so does glycerol - so terpenes can be extracted pretty easily. 

When I make an infusion of say lavender in water, the active compounds mostly should remain in the flowers as the solvent I'm using when making (herbal) tea is water of course? 
(I don't drink oil infusions or something haha.) 

In the case of lavender, the active compounds are found in the essential oil which primarily consists of the terpenes linalool and linalyl acetate. 
But when I brew a cup of lavender tea I can still smell and taste the lavender in the infused water 
and the infused leftover flowers are smelling less, which I would assume means a decent amount of the smelling compounds (which primarily are the terpenes) are taken out of the herb? 

Can someone clarify this. 
What makes herbal tea effective? 

Thank you in advance

[Itoero]

1 hour ago, kjell159 said:

But when I brew a cup of lavender tea I can still smell and taste the lavender in the infused water 
and the infused leftover flowers are smelling less, which I would assume means a decent amount of the smelling compounds (which primarily are the terpenes) are taken out of the herb? 

That''s correct, you were basically on the track of making essential oil. But you need a setup and a huge number of flowers to make a little bit of essential oil.

 

1 hour ago, kjell159 said:

How do herbs give medicinal properties into herbal tea/infusions?

Because of active 'chemicals'. Turmeric and Green tea for example, contain phenols or polyphenols which have an antioxidant activity. The anti-oxidant activity of red wine (grape tea) comes from resveratrol.  There are also herbs that have an effect on membrane ion-channels (like Bacopa monnieri and Omega 3)

What's imo interesting, in a high dose/concentration certain anti-oxidants can become pro-oxidant.