Before You Begin: How These Recipes Were Checked

This page explains how the recipes were checked, gives you the safety information you need before choosing a recipe, and then divides the twenty-eight into three groups: those drunk whenever you like, those drunk for a few days during a cold or when unwell, and those taken as a course.

How the Checking Was Done

Every plant in the recipe section was checked against the monographs of the Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products of the European Medicines Agency, where one exists, and against the European Pharmacopoeia. These documents record, plant by plant, what a preparation is recognized for, at what dose, for how long, from what age, with what contraindications and what drug interactions — and, crucially, on what basis. A monograph states what a use is based on: well-established efficacy, meaning clinical evidence, or tradition, meaning long-standing practice with safety data but without trials. That distinction runs through every chapter that follows.

In practice the basis here is almost always the same one: tradition. The monographs give a clinical basis for three of the indications this book discusses, and only one of them comes close to anything you will brew: pharmacy buckthorn bark for occasional constipation (Chapter 40) — and even there the monograph means a tea made from standardized bark, where the amount of active compound per cup is known. The other two — the standardized dry extract of ginkgo leaf for age-related cognitive impairment (Chapter 19) and powdered ginger root against nausea and vomiting in motion sickness (Chapter 33) — belong to pharmacy preparations, not to a tea, and the chapters say so. Everything else called recognized in these pages is recognized on the basis of tradition.¹ Hibiscus stands outside that count: it has no European monograph and so nothing recognized, yet its effect on blood pressure is the best-documented clinical finding in these pages (Chapter 22).

Where a plant has no European monograph — hibiscus, guelder rose, rowan, sea buckthorn, rosehip, cherry leaf, bay, jasmine — the chapter says so in as many words, and the statements made rest on the analytical and clinical literature instead. Saying “there is no monograph for this plant” is not a weakness in a recipe book. It is information the reader needs in order to know how much weight to put on the rest of the page. The Glossary of Plants at the end of the book gives the status of all thirty plants, and the Bibliography the full reference for every source.

This checking establishes that the recipes agree with the best available reference sources. It does not establish that any of these drinks will help you, and for most of them nobody has run the trial that would show it. Traditional use means that people have done this for a long time without evident harm. It is a reason to find a drink interesting. It is not a reason to expect it to work.

The checking covered what a plant is recognized for, who must not take it, and what it must not be combined with. The amount of herb and water in the drinks is the book’s own. The monographs describe an herbal tea in much the same way: one to four and a half grams of herb to 150 ml of boiling water, several times a day. The drinks in this book are brewed weaker, and leaves and flowers often with water below the boil, for the sake of flavor. If you drink peppermint, lemon balm, chamomile, linden or sage for a recognized indication, brew it as the monograph does: with boiling water and in its proportion.

Before You Make Anything

Read the whole recipe, including its contraindications and interactions, before you brew it, and this in particular.

Honey is not safe for children under twelve months in any form — raw, pasteurized or heated — because of the risk of infant botulism. Thirteen recipes here contain honey, and it is the likeliest harm in these pages: honey looks harmless, and to an infant it is deadly.

If you take prescription medication, these are the interactions in this book:

• Willow bark, Chapters 41 and 42, must not be combined with aspirin, ibuprofen or other NSAIDs, or with anticoagulants — someone taking a painkiller and then brewing willow bark tea for the same headache is doubling a dose they do not know they are taking.
• Licorice, Chapter 37, must not be combined with diuretics, cardiac glycosides, corticosteroids or stimulant laxatives, including the buckthorn bark of Chapter 40, and calls for caution alongside medicines the liver breaks down with the enzyme CYP3A4.
• Buckthorn bark, Chapter 40, must not be combined with licorice root, diuretics or corticosteroids, and if you take cardiac glycosides, antiarrhythmic medication or any medicine that prolongs the QT interval, ask a doctor first: the potassium loss it causes intensifies their effect.
• Hibiscus, Chapters 22 and 25, lowers blood pressure and adds to the effect of medication that does the same.
• Ginkgo, Chapter 19, affects platelet function and interacts with anticoagulants.
• Hawthorn, Chapter 27, should not be taken alongside prescribed heart or blood pressure medication without advice.
• Oak bark, Chapter 39, delays the absorption of any medicine taken at the same time; leave an hour either side.
• Burdock root, Chapter 36, is not recommended alongside prescribed diuretics.
• Ginseng, Chapters 34 and 38, is the one case where the monograph reports no interaction and the literature is not settled: it has been studied repeatedly alongside anticoagulants and diabetes medication, and if you take either, ask a doctor before making it a regular drink.

Three recipes use raw material that is unsafe until prepared correctly. Buckthorn bark, Chapter 40, must have been stored for at least a year, which is why it is bought at a pharmacy and not stripped from a tree. Guelder rose berries, Chapter 29, must be frosted or frozen and then cooked. Rowan berries, Chapter 30, must be dried or frozen and then cooked, never used fresh. Each chapter explains why. None of these steps is optional.

A fourth plant belongs here although its safety is a matter of quantity rather than of preparation. The cherry leaf of Chapter 18 is cyanogenic: crushing it releases benzaldehyde, which is the almond scent, and hydrogen cyanide, which comes out of the same reaction. At the amount Chapter 18 uses it is a flavoring, not a base to brew by the potful; wilted leaves are not to be used at all.

If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, read this before anything else. Twenty-six of the twenty-eight recipes here are restricted in pregnancy — most because safety has not been established rather than because harm has been shown, but the answer is the same either way. The two that carry no restriction are the rosehip brew of Chapter 26 and the sea buckthorn of Chapter 28, both of them fruits eaten as food across Europe. That is a thin list, and seeing it whole is more use to you than working it out one chapter at a time.

Each recipe states an age limit or explains why there is none. Where there is a limit, the reason is most often the same one: the plant has not been studied in children, and a monograph does not claim what it does not know. Where the reason is another — thujone in sage, Reye’s syndrome with willow, the toxicity of raw guelder rose berries — the chapter names it. These limits are not decorative. Not every contraindication in the recipes comes with a reason: some are standing cautions of Eastern European herbal practice, kept here as a precaution, listed without one and marked as a traditional caution where they stand.

If a symptom persists, gets worse, or comes back as soon as you stop drinking something, that is a reason to see a doctor. It is not a reason to make a stronger cup.

Three Groups of Recipes

Fifteen of the recipes are drunk whenever you like. Make them at whatever frequency suits you, within the limits each chapter gives: peppermint and lemon balm (15), raspberry and blackcurrant leaf (17), bay and cherry leaf (18), chamomile and lavender (20), linden with jasmine (21), hibiscus with calendula (22), the floral “Summer Evening” (23), chilled hibiscus with mint (25), rosehip (26), sea buckthorn with honey (28), guelder rose (29), rowan with dates (30), the winter warming drink (31), chicory “coffee” (32) and dandelion “coffee” (35). If you came here to replace a daily cup of coffee, Chapters 32 and 35 are the two you want, and they are written for that purpose.

Six recipes are for the cold season and for feeling unwell. They are drunk for a few days and then stopped: sage and thyme (16), the floral cold-season blend (24), warming ginger (33), the chest blend with licorice and plantain (37), willow bark (41) and willow bark with ginger and mint (42). Several have a short time frame: if a cough has not cleared within a week, licorice is stopped and a doctor seen, and with willow a doctor is seen if a headache lasts more than a day or a fever more than three.

Seven recipes are remedies, taken on a course. Nothing is gained by drinking them for pleasure: ginkgo leaf (19), hawthorn and rosehip (27), ginseng (34), burdock root (36), the chicory-ginseng-ginger tonic (38), oak bark (39) and buckthorn bark (40). Ginkgo is here for a different reason: its chapter explains why a tea of the leaf is no substitute for the pharmacy extract. Oak and buckthorn bark are the furthest from a drink in this book — oak bark is an astringent that is as often gargled as swallowed and is not taken internally beyond three days, and buckthorn bark is a laxative taken at night, two or three times, and then stopped.

Every recipe in the first two groups carries a line at the top saying what it tastes like, because taste is how anyone actually chooses a drink. The seven in the third group do not carry one. That absence is deliberate: you do not choose a laxative by its flavor.