Loquat tea is an effective home medicine for cough

What is loquat tree(Pi Pa Ye)?
It is small evergreen tree, about 10 meters in height. Stout twig is yellowish-brown, and covered with dense rust or gray-brown hair. Leathery leaves are lanceolate, oblanceolate, obovate or elliptic-oblong, 12 to 30cm long, 3 to 9cm wide, with acute or acuminate apex and cuneate or attenuate-petiole base. Panicle is acrogenous; peduncle and calyx are densely covered with rust tomentum outside; white flowers are 1.2 to 2cm in diameter; styles are 5 and free. Pome is spherical or oblong, 2 to 5cm in diameter, and yellow or orange. Seeds are 1 to 15, spherical or flat spherical, 1 to 1.5cm in diameter, brown, shiny, and with papery seed coat. Bloom time is from October to December and fruiting time is from the following May to June. In China it is mainly cultivated or uncultivated in Gansu, Shaanxi, Henan, and the Yangtze River.

Since the main medicinal part is the leaf, medicinally it mainly refers to the dried brown leaves of Eriobotrya japonica (Thunb.) Lindl. or Mespilus japonica Thunb. This is a member in the family Rosaceae. And other names include Folium Eriobotryae Japonicae, Eriobotrya japonica leaf, Japanese loquat, and so on. It can be harvested throughout the year. And next it needs to dry them in the sun, brush hair off the surface, and then slice. It is usually used raw or stir-fried with honey.

Loquat leaves benefits
Often planted as an ornamental plant in park or backyard, loquat tree is known for its versatility – all its leaf, fruit, root, and nut can be used medicinally for many types of coughs; its edible fruit is sweet, juicy, tasty, and with very high nutritional value; its reddish brown, hard, and tough trunk is a perfect timber for manufacturing walking stick, wooden hammer, wooden clubs, etc.; its flowers are an excellent nectar source. Unlike most fruit bearing trees, loquat blooms in the autumn and early winter and fruits ripen in next spring and early summer. Because of that, it earns also the title as "the only fruiter that possesses the properties of all 4 seasons." In addition, known as one in the "Three Sisters in Early Summer" (the other two are cherry and bayberry), it is on the market way earlier than most fruits.

As mentioned above, loquat tea is an effective home medicine for cough. To better understand how this herb works, let’s figure out what is cough and what helps coughing in the first place. Western medicine believes that coughing is the body’s protective respiratory reflex action, which is caused by the urge arrived at cough center located in the medulla oblongata of the brainstem via nerve fiber once the receptors in the respiratory mucosa are stimulated by foreign matter, irritant gases, respiratory tract secretions, and so on. The Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing Shu (Commentary on ‘Shen Nong’s Classic of the Materia Medica) says: "All adverse risings, including retch, coughing, vomiting, are caused by fire flaring. Loquat leaf is of cold nature and good at descending qi, which thus stops the flaring up of fire and finally brings in to restore order. Similarly, the descending qi of loquat leaves can be used to other reversed scenarios, such as non-stop vomiting, dry mouth in postpartum women, Diabetes in men, lung-heat cough, wheezing, shortness of breath, beriberi, cough accompanied by a fever, early menstrual periods, and more."