Americans are increasingly consuming Asian herbal remedies in the form of teas, with the country’s tea market representing more than 55 billion gallons consumed each year.

Some recently released herbal supplements that can be consumed as teas include Japanese herbs like dokudami and other plant extracts thought to reduce high blood pressure.

"I usually had an average reading of 170 to 250 for the upper and 85 to 130 for the lower" measures of blood pressure, said inventor Hiroshi Kumagain.

After a slow recovery that incorporated drinking his self-made teas, "the upper dropped from 150 to 130 to 110, while the lower went from 90 to 80 to 65," he added.

The products have come from a long history of herbal supplements as medical treatments, including Zen Buddhism’s founder Eisai, who wrote of the power of plants to improve body and mind.

More recently, the Singapore Post has found that other Asian techniques for beverages using natural ingredients may be beneficial for certain conditions, such as boiling cucumbers in water may also limit the effects of high blood pressure when one drinks the infused beverage.