Licorice Root Tea for Cough Relief

Research suggests that licorice root has historically appeared across multiple traditional medicine systems, including Ayurveda, Unani, and Traditional Chinese Medicine, as a proposed remedy for various respiratory and other conditions, though the available published evidence specifically examining licorice root tea for cough relief remains extremely limited. The one study identified here is a systematic scoping review from 2020 that surveyed what alternative medicine systems were proposing for COVID-19 prevention and treatment, and while it documents that such traditional remedies were being promoted, it does not evaluate licorice root for cough outcomes specifically or provide clinical trial data. The authors of that review explicitly concluded that none of the remedies surveyed had been rigorously tested, and that well-designed randomized controlled trials would be necessary before any effectiveness claims could be substantiated. Overall, the current body of evidence catalogued here is insufficient to draw conclusions about licorice root tea as a cough remedy, and readers interested in this topic should be aware that the gap between traditional use and clinically validated evidence remains substantial.