Summer Allergy Season? An Andean Take on Nettle Tea

July 6, 2026

Every July it’s the same story for a lot of people. The grill is out, the days are long, and somewhere around the second week the sneezing starts. Summer allergy season doesn’t get the same press as spring, but grass and weed pollen peak in the warm months, and plenty of us feel it.

One old remedy that keeps coming up is nettle, known in Peru as ortiga. It’s the same stinging plant that leaves a welt if you brush against it in the wild, and somehow it ended up as a tea people reach for when their eyes are itching. Here’s an honest look at why, and what the research actually shows.

What ortiga is

Ortiga is stinging nettle, Urtica dioica, a plant that grows across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, including the Andean highlands. Fresh nettle earns its name: tiny hairs on the leaves inject a mix of compounds that sting the skin. Dry it or steep it in hot water, though, and the sting disappears completely. What’s left is a green, slightly grassy tea that Andean families have used for generations.

In Peru, ortiga shows up in home remedies for joints, for the urinary tract, and in the vague but common category of “limpiar la sangre,” or cleaning the blood. You’ll find it in the high valleys where it grows like a weed, gathered rather than bought.

The allergy connection

Here’s the part that gets nettle its summer reputation. There is a small but real body of research looking at nettle and allergic rhinitis, the runny-nose, itchy-eyes reaction to pollen.

The most-cited study is an old one: a 1990 randomized trial published by Mittman that tested freeze-dried nettle against a placebo in people with hay fever. A modest share of participants rated it better than placebo. It was a short, small study, so it proves less than the internet often claims. Later lab work, including a 2009 study, found that nettle extract could interfere with histamine H1 receptors and with mast cell tryptase, two players in the allergic response. That’s a plausible mechanism, but it’s test-tube work, not a promise about your July symptoms.

Honest verdict: the evidence is preliminary and thin. Some people swear by it, the biology isn’t crazy, and the studies are too small to settle anything. We’re a tea shop, not a doctor, and we’re not going to tell you nettle treats allergies. What we can say is that it’s a traditional, low-drama herbal tea worth knowing about.

How to drink it in summer

Nettle takes well to both hot and iced preparation, which makes it easy in July:

Hot: steep a tea bag or a teaspoon of dried leaf in just-off-boil water for 5 to 10 minutes. Longer steeping makes it deeper and greener.
Iced: brew it double-strength, let it cool, and pour over ice with a little lemon. It’s clean and grassy, closer to green tea than to a floral herbal.

If you like the loose-leaf ritual, we also carry a loose-leaf ortiga alongside the tea bags. And nettle pairs naturally with other Andean plants people drink for the kidneys and urinary tract, like horsetail (cola de caballo), which we cover in our horsetail explainer.

Who should be careful

Nettle is gentle for most people, but a few groups should pay attention:

Pregnancy: nettle has a traditional reputation for affecting the uterus, so it’s best avoided during pregnancy unless your doctor says otherwise.
Blood pressure and diuretic medication: nettle is mildly diuretic and may nudge blood pressure. If you take related medication, check first.
Blood thinners and diabetes drugs: nettle contains vitamin K and may affect blood sugar, so it can interact with these. Loop in your provider.

You can also browse our full inflammation and joint support collection if you want to see where ortiga sits among the rest.

The bottom line

Ortiga won’t replace your allergy plan, and anyone promising that is overselling a cup of tea. What it is: a genuinely traditional Andean herb, easy to drink hot or iced, with a sliver of research that keeps people curious every summer. If pollen season has you reaching for something warm and green, nettle is a pleasant, honest option to try.