It's not everyday that you find miracles in mundane life.
Everyone knows about the "Gokarna" flower. It grows almost like a wild flower in our gardens. As a child, I have seen it grown among weeds and I always assumed it is a wild flower. Yesterday, on a walk with a friend, we stumbled upon this pretty ink blue flower - Gokarna. But, that's not what I wanted to share.
Since I belong to a generation, which uses Google for searching about every single thing, I googled about this flower and stumbled upon very very interesting things. According to Wikipedia, the scientific name of this flower is Clitoria ternatea. Apparently, it's shaped like a female genitalia, which is another wonder since throughout our childhood we were told it looks like a cow's ear. Cultural differences affect our perception so much! I might have looked at this flower infinite times and yet I was never struck with a similarity with female anatomy :).
The second most interesting thing I learnt is about the edible properties of this flower. Being a foodie, I know about edible zuccini blossoms, or even our local banana flower. Not just can you eat this flower as a snack (fry it), use it as a coloring agent, but the most common uses of Butterfly Blue Pea is to make tea.
Butterfly blue pea flowers are infused in hot water and you can drink this blue tea. There are surprising benefits of this cute little flower. It's good for your eye sight, good for healthy skin, memory boosting, and contains antioxidants which curb the harmful effects of free radicals. I won't go into a list of its benefits as this is not a medical post. You can read more about the benefits here.
Someone's rightly said, several small joys give infinite pleasure than one big happy event. Stumbling upon this creeper, taking its seeds home to sow, reading about its shape and connotations, reading about its medicinal value, edible value, and so on were all small moments of happiness for me. I have memories of morning walks with my grandmom and collecting flowers on our way. The bright blue color was always a favorite.
Now, I am waiting for the plant to grow and infuse its happiness in a blue tea :).
I am so happy I found something that gave me happiness on so many levels!
Everyone knows about the "Gokarna" flower. It grows almost like a wild flower in our gardens. As a child, I have seen it grown among weeds and I always assumed it is a wild flower. Yesterday, on a walk with a friend, we stumbled upon this pretty ink blue flower - Gokarna. But, that's not what I wanted to share.
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| Gokarna or Butterfly Blue Pea |
Since I belong to a generation, which uses Google for searching about every single thing, I googled about this flower and stumbled upon very very interesting things. According to Wikipedia, the scientific name of this flower is Clitoria ternatea. Apparently, it's shaped like a female genitalia, which is another wonder since throughout our childhood we were told it looks like a cow's ear. Cultural differences affect our perception so much! I might have looked at this flower infinite times and yet I was never struck with a similarity with female anatomy :).
The second most interesting thing I learnt is about the edible properties of this flower. Being a foodie, I know about edible zuccini blossoms, or even our local banana flower. Not just can you eat this flower as a snack (fry it), use it as a coloring agent, but the most common uses of Butterfly Blue Pea is to make tea.
Butterfly blue pea flowers are infused in hot water and you can drink this blue tea. There are surprising benefits of this cute little flower. It's good for your eye sight, good for healthy skin, memory boosting, and contains antioxidants which curb the harmful effects of free radicals. I won't go into a list of its benefits as this is not a medical post. You can read more about the benefits here.
Someone's rightly said, several small joys give infinite pleasure than one big happy event. Stumbling upon this creeper, taking its seeds home to sow, reading about its shape and connotations, reading about its medicinal value, edible value, and so on were all small moments of happiness for me. I have memories of morning walks with my grandmom and collecting flowers on our way. The bright blue color was always a favorite.
Now, I am waiting for the plant to grow and infuse its happiness in a blue tea :).
I am so happy I found something that gave me happiness on so many levels!
