Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Country tea is a small leafy shrub of the Caribbean and tropical Americas. Its botanical name is Capraria biflora. People dry or pick the leaves and brew them as a hot drink.
In Jamaica it is often called goat weed. In Haiti and Martinique it is te peyi, or thé pays, which means "country tea". Families have drunk it for colds, chills and upset stomach.
Here is the honest verdict up front. There are almost no human studies on this plant. Long use shows that people valued it, but that is not proof that it works or that it is safe.
No one has shown how country tea acts in the human body. The plant has had very little study of any kind.
Test-tube screens of Capraria biflora extracts have shown some action against bacteria and fungi. Those were laboratory results only. They do not show that drinking the tea fights an infection in a person.
Part of what people feel is likely the drink itself. A warm fluid can soothe a sore throat and ease a stuffy nose. That comfort is real, and it is not special to this plant.
Folk ideas that it "cleans the blood" or "cools the body" come from tradition. They have not been tested in people.
Dried leaf is the usual form. It is sold loose in Caribbean markets and shops, and sometimes in tea bags.
Fresh leaves and soft stems are also brewed at home. Some families use the whole above-ground part of the plant.
Other recorded uses include washes and baths for the skin. Tinctures and capsules are rare and often poorly labelled.
Nothing on the market is standardised. The same brand can vary from batch to batch.
Country tea held a steady place in Caribbean bush tea customs. Rural households used local plants when imported tea was costly or hard to get.
Healers in Jamaica, Haiti, Martinique and Guadeloupe recorded it for colds, fevers and stomach trouble. Some homes drank it as an everyday tonic.
Plant-use surveys from the twentieth century onward listed it among the common home teas of the islands. Those records describe custom, not test results.
This page sets out what people did. It does not suggest you take up the practice.
Stop drinking it and see a doctor if any of these happen:
You get a rash, swelling of the lips or face, or trouble breathing. Call emergency services for breathing trouble or facial swelling.
Your skin or the whites of your eyes turn yellow (jaundice), or your urine turns dark. These can be signs of liver trouble.
You vomit again and again, or you pass blood in your stool.
A fever lasts more than three days, or a child has a fever. Do not wait on a home tea for that.
Country tea is sold as an ordinary herbal drink in Caribbean markets and food shops. No country has approved it as a medicine, and in the United States it would fall under dietary supplement rules, which do not require proof that it works.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Country tea is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
One email with the summary. We'll also send a short weekly evidence update — unsubscribe any time.
