Can a simple root be the root of good health? We try a drink that may promise more than just refreshment.

Does my face look a little yellow? My hands? I don’t have jaundice, I’ve been eating turmeric.

Yes, I too want to live forever and after reading so many reports of how turmeric, or more specifically one of its components called curcumin, is anti-oxidant, anti-bacterial antiseptic and anti-inflammatory I felt it would be anti-smart to not get some of it down me.

But as anyone who cooks curries at home knows, turmeric is a stainer like no other. Just glance at the jar and you’ll find half the kitchen is suddenly painted yellow. Get it on your clothes and you’ll never get it out, not even with Cilit Bang. It lingers on the fingers too, making you look like you smoke forty Woodbines a day.

There are curcumin tablets, but I have bit of a thing about tablets – I don’t like taking them, never have.

So Drink Me Chai’s Turmeric Latte arrived on our desk just at the right time.

The powder inside looks just like turmeric, a vivid yellow that Van Gogh would have loved, but it brushes off the fingers easily and with no stain. It’s a mix of 50% turmeric, 45% coconut powder and the rest is black pepper and cinnamon.

It has that heady turmeric smell and can be drunk as a latte, mixed with a splash of hot water and a good hit of hot milk, or made into a cold latte. You can also sprinkle it into things like soups and salads.

I like it with hot milk mid-morning. It has an earthy taste that’s unusual but not unpleasant and which is leavened by the coconut sweetness.

The coconut also helps the body absorb the curcumin better, as does the black pepper component, piperine, which apparently helps absorption by 2000%.

Of course, the scientific proof of curcumin’s wonder powers is not yet in, but as it makes such a pleasant drink there seems no reason not to try it.

In general, it’s fair to say that turmeric does help digestion, it’s been eaten for that benefit for hundreds of years.

So put the kettle on, it’s time for turmeric.

Find out more at Drink Me Chai’s Turmeric Latte