Rose hip tea

Rose hip tea (rosehip infusion, dog rose tea) is brewed from the dried fruit of the dog rose, Rosa canina. The tea plant is not involved. What you brew is the so-called false fruit, the hypanthium, often with its seeds, so German classification counts it as a fruit tea rather than a herbal one.

The European Pharmacopoeia, according to a secondary account, describes this material in its Rosae pseudo-fructus monograph and covers two species, Rosa canina and R. pendulina.

Rose hips are known mainly for vitamin C, but the figures refer to raw fruit. According to USDA (through a secondary reprint of the table), raw wild rose hips contain 426 mg of ascorbic acid per 100 g. A review by Chrubasik and colleagues gives a range of 180 to 965 mg per 100 g, and a Pakistani study of another species, R. brunonii, reports up to 2,985 mg; species and conditions differ. The sources found have no data on dried hips for tea or on how much vitamin survives brewing.

For pyrrolizidine alkaloids rose hip gets no extra allowance in the EU: the cap is 200 µg/kg dried, half of the 400 µg/kg that chamomile or peppermint may carry.

Its closest neighbour among fruit and flower infusions is Hibiscus tea (karkade), which also skips the leaves in favour of the red calyces of a flower and sits under the same 200 µg/kg cap. Linden tea and Chamomile tea are brewed from flowers rather than fruit.

On the pack, look for the Latin name Rosa canina or the term Rosae pseudo-fructus; in German this infusion is called Hagebuttentee and belongs to Früchtetee. As for the cup itself, no source found states a water temperature, a brewing time, a flavour or a colour.

Why this matters to you: you know that the vitamin C figure on a pack usually refers to raw fruit, not to a cup of infusion.