Steeped in the Mountains: Tea, Botanicals, and Appalachian Craft

MARVIN BOWERS
Steeped in the Mountains: Tea, Botanicals, and Appalachian Craft

The word "tea" in Appalachia has always meant something more than the foil-wrapped bag of Camellia sinensis. To "make a tea" was an act of botany, of necessity, and of deep, practical knowledge. It was a craft born of isolation, where the forest understory and the creek bank served as the pantry, the spice rack, and the medicine cabinet.

Long before "wild-foraged" became a marketing buzzword, it was a simple fact of life. The store-bought luxuries of black tea or coffee were often unavailable, cut off by blockades during the Civil War or made unaffordable by the Great Depression. Survival, and daily comfort, depended on what you could gather.

This isn't a simple story of "ancient wisdom" or a bucolic fantasy. It's a complex, grounded story of cultural exchange and human ingenuity. It’s what happens when the folk knowledge of Scots-Irish settlers, who brought a memory of brewing with heather and gorse, collided with the ancient, established pharmacopoeia of the Cherokee, Catawba, and Shawnee.

That collision, pressure-cooked by generations of mountain isolation, created a unique American tradition. It wasn't about "wellness" or "detox." It was about flavor. It was about medicine. It was about making a hot, steaming cup of something to cut the cold, to settle a churning stomach, or to hopefully break a fever.

To understand these "teas," you have to walk the creek beds and ridges. You have to learn the difference between what's safe and what's not, what tastes good and what tastes like a chemical warning. You have to separate the facts from the romance. The real story, steeped in chemistry and history, is far more fascinating.

The Mountain Staples: The Daily Brew

While some plants were reserved for medicine, a few were staples, the daily, caffeine-free comforts that filled the cup.

Sassafras: The Scent of the Holler

The Plant: Sassafras albidum. You know this tree by its smell long before you know it by its signature leaves—three distinct shapes (oval, two-lobed "mitten," and three-lobed "ghost") on the same branch.

The History: Sassafras was one of the New World's first major exports. In the 16th century, European explorers, convinced by the scent and the bright red of the root, declared it a cure-all. For centuries, ships full of sassafras root and bark sailed to Europe.

In Appalachia, it was the definitive spring tonic. After a long winter of salt pork, pickled beans, and dried apples, a tea brewed from the root bark was said to "thin the blood." This was less a medical prescription and more a sensory jolt—a flavorful, aromatic ritual to welcome the change of seasons.

The Brew: This is a decoction. You don't just steep sassafras; you have to work for it. The bark from the root is washed, shaved, and then simmered. You're boiling the flavor and the deep red color out of the tough root. The resulting tea is spicy, aromatic, and needs absolutely nothing else, though a little sugar was common.

The Science : The distinctive flavor and aroma come from a compound called safrole. And this is where the traditional craft collides with modern regulation. In 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned safrole as a food additive. Studies in the 1950s, which involved feeding lab rats extremely high, concentrated doses of safrole, showed a clear link to hepatic adenomas, or liver cancer.^{1}

This ban is why your modern root beer is flavored with methyl salicylate (wintergreen) or a "safrole-free" sassafras extract. It also means that, technically, traditional sassafras tea is illegal to sell for consumption. This news, of course, rarely trickled up the hollers, where people had been drinking it for generations. It’s a perfect example of how the dose makes the poison; the amount of safrole in a single cup of home-brewed tea is minuscule compared to the lab-grade concentrations used in the studies. But the ban remains, a fascinating footnote in the history of a beloved plant.

Spicebush: The Appalachian Allspice

The Plant: Lindera benzoin. If sassafras is the root, spicebush is the branch. This is, to me, the defining flavor of the Appalachian understory. It’s a multi-stemmed shrub that lights up the woods in early spring with tiny, fragrant yellow flowers long before the canopy trees leaf out.

The Experience: Snap a pencil-thick twig. Crush a leaf. The aroma is immediate and stunning: a complex, citrusy, spicy perfume of allspice, lemon, and lavender. In the fall, the female bushes produce bright red, oily berries that can be dried and ground. This was the "Appalachian allspice."

The Brew: This was the go-to substitute when coffee and black tea were scarce. The leaves make a pleasant infusion, but the real, classic winter tea is a decoction of the twigs. Snap a handful, break them into a pot, cover with cold water, and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

The tea is a beautiful, pale amber. The flavor is fantastic—clean, spicy, and warming. It needs no honey, no sugar. It's just... complete.

The Science: The aroma comes from a mix of volatile oils (terpenes/phenylpropanoids); think citrus-spice with occasional anise notes depending on plant part and season.. The oils in spicebush are rich in linalool (also found in lavender and bergamot) and geranial (a component of lemon oil). Medicinally, it was used as a diaphoretic (to make you sweat) and a fever-reducer, but its primary value was as a wonderful, zero-cost, caffeine-free beverage.

Pine: The Winter Restorative

The Plant: Pinus strobus. The Eastern White Pine. The key to identification is in the needles: they grow in bundles of five, soft and flexible.

The History: This is the deep-winter tea. When the ground is frozen and the deciduous trees are skeletons, the pine is a bright green, evergreen promise. This knowledge is ancient. Indigenous tribes across the continent knew the value of evergreen needles. When Jacques Cartier's crew was dying of scurvy in Canada in 1536, the Iroquois saved them with a decoction of evergreen needles (likely cedar or fir).^{2}

This knowledge was essential in the mountains, where a winter diet of cured meats and root-cellared vegetables put people at high risk for vitamin deficiencies.

The Brew: This is an infusion, not a decoction. Boiling pine needles makes them bitter and resinous, like a cup of turpentine. The proper method is to gather a handful of the new-growth, bright green needles, chop them (to bruise and release the oils), and steep them in hot (not boiling) water for 10-15 minutes.

The result is a pale, greenish-yellow tea with a surprisingly mild, pleasant, resinous flavor. With a spoonful of dark honey, it's a truly restorative drink.

The Science (The Brown-down): The folk wisdom was dead-on. White pine (and other conifers) carry meaningful Vitamin C; exact amounts vary. Cartier’s crew was reportedly saved by a conifer decoction (likely cedar), a reminder that evergreens were critical winter medicine.

A crucial safety note: You must know your conifers. White pine is safe. Most pines, firs, and spruces are safe. But the Yew (Taxus species), which has needles and red berries, is not a pine and is famously toxic. Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa), more common out West, is not recommended for pregnant women as it contains isocupressic acid, a known abortifacient in cattle. Identification is not a casual game.

The Pharmacopoeia: Respect & Risk

This is where "tea" stops meaning "beverage" and starts meaning "medicine." These plants weren't brewed for pleasure. They were brewed with purpose, often out of desperation, and they commanded respect.

Yellowroot: The Bitter Cure

The Plant: Xanthorhiza simplicissima. An unassuming, low-growing shrub found in dense thickets on shady creek banks. The magic is in the name. Scrape the bark on a root or twig, and the interior is a shocking, fluorescent, unmistakable yellow.

The History: This was one of the most important plants in the Cherokee pharmacopoeia, and settlers quickly adopted it. It was the mountain antiseptic. The root was used as an astringent, an anti-inflammatory, and an antibacterial. It was used as a gargle for sore throats, a wash for infected cuts, and an internal "tea" for stomach ailments. Chewing a small piece of the root was a common remedy for a mouth sore.

The Brew: You decoct the root. You dig it, wash it, chop it, and simmer it. The water turns the same electric yellow. And the taste. It is bitter. This isn't the pleasant bitterness of coffee or dark chocolate. It's a profound, chemical, pucker-inducing bitterness that coats your entire mouth.

This is why honey pairing is not just a suggestion; it's a structural necessity. You need a dark, strong honey (like sourwood or buckwheat) not just to sweeten the tea, but to provide a counterbalance, to make the medicine palatable.

The Science (The Brown-down): The yellow color and the intense bitterness come from a powerful alkaloid: berberine. This is the same compound found in Goldenseal and Oregon Grape, and it's now a hot topic in modern nutritional science.

The science is, in this case, validating the folklore. Berberine is a potent, pharmacologically active compound. It's a proven antimicrobial, which makes that sore throat gargle sound science.^{3} It's an anti-inflammatory. And most interestingly, modern clinical studies are showing berberine can be effective at lowering blood sugar and improving insulin sensitivity, in some cases rivaling the effects of frontline diabetes drugs like Metformin.^{4} The mountain people, drinking this bitter tea for "stomach complaints," were practicing advanced biochemistry by trial and error.

Boneset & Coltsfoot: The Double-Edged Swords

These plants are a stark reminder that "traditional" does not always mean "safe." They were used because the alternative—dying of fever or pneumonia—was far worse.

Boneset: Eupatorium perfoliatum. A tall, hairy plant from the aster family, named for the "breakbone fever" (like influenza) it was used to treat.

A hot, bitter-as-all-get-out infusion was used as a powerful diaphoretic to make the patient sweat and "break" the fever. And it worked.

Coltsfoot: Tussilago farfara. The name literally means "cough-suppressant." The leaves were dried and either brewed as a tea or smoked in a pipe to treat asthma, bronchitis, and persistent coughs.

The Science (The Brown-down): Here's the modern reckoning. Both of these plants, along with their cousin Comfrey (Symphytum officinale), contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs). PAs are hepatotoxic. In plain English, they are poison to the liver. The damage is slow, cumulative, and irreversible, leading to hepatic veno-occlusive disease, cirrhosis, and liver failure.^{5} Boneset has been reported to contain hepatotoxic PAs (levels vary); modern guidance is to avoid internal use.

The old-timers had no way of knowing this. They were trading an invisible, long-term risk (liver failure) for an immediate, life-saving reward (surviving influenza). It was a calculation of desperation. Today, with access to aspirin and antibiotics, there is no logical reason to ingest these plants. They are a powerful part of the history of Appalachian medicine, but they should remain there.

Catnip: The Gentle Sedative

The Plant: Nepeta cataria. Yes, the same stuff that makes your cat act possessed. In the mint family, it grows like a weed.

The History: While it's a stimulant for felines, it's a mild sedative for humans. It was the mountain Valium. A gentle infusion was given to colicky babies, to people with "nervous stomachs," or to anyone needing to calm down and get some sleep.

The Brew: A simple, pleasant infusion of the dried leaves and flowers. It has a mild, earthy, minty-lemony flavor.

The Science (The Brown-down): The active compound is nepetalactone. It's a mild central nervous system sedative, similar in (much weaker) effect to valerian. It’s one of the few "medicinal" teas that is both effective and largely safe.

The Man-Root: A Story of Global Trade

Of all the plants that tell a story, one tells a story of global trade, obsession, and the law. One plant is Appalachia, in root form.

The Plant: Panax quinquefolius. American Ginseng. "Sang." If sassafras is a loud, common tree, ginseng is a whisper. It hides. It demands deep, damp, north-facing coves under a thick hardwood canopy. It’s subtle: a single stalk, a "prong," with three to five leaves, each divided into five leaflets. In late summer, a cluster of bright red berries. The prize is the root, a gnarled, pale, often forked rhizome that, with a little imagination, looks like a small human.

The History: This is the "doctrine of signatures" on overdrive. Because it looks like a person, it must cure... everything. While the Cherokee and other tribes used it as a powerful tonic, its economic value was created by a global market. In 1716, a Jesuit priest in Canada, acting on a tip from a colleague in China, "discovered" the American species was a close cousin to Asian Ginseng (Panax ginseng), the most revered plant in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

A trade route was born. This plant, dug from the darkest, most isolated hollers, was suddenly connected to Canton. Daniel Boone wasn't just a frontiersman; he was a ginseng broker. He made a small fortune shipping "sang" out of the mountains to Philadelphia, where it was loaded onto ships. For a man in a barter economy, ginseng was one of the only ways to get hard cash. It was botanical gold.

The Hunt: "Sanging" became a profession, a craft, and a closely-guarded secret. It was hard, patient work. A "sanger" would walk for miles, his eyes scanning the forest floor for that specific plant. The Foxfire books, that brilliant oral history project, are filled with the voices of old-timers describing the hunt.^{6} They talk about the "sang hoe," a small, specific tool for gently lifting the root without breaking its valuable "necks."

And they talk about the ethics. A true sanger, a steward, would only dig a mature, 3-prong or 4-prong plant. He would only dig it in the fall, after the berries turned red. And he was, by an unwritten law, required to squeeze the red berries and plant the seeds right back in the hole where he dug the root. This wasn't conservation; it was simple, long-term pragmatism. You don't eat your seed corn.

The Law: The unwritten law wasn't enough. The demand was too high. The plant was plundered. By the 20th century, wild stock was dangerously low. This is where the story turns from folklore to federal law.

American Ginseng is listed on CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). It's an Appendix II species, meaning it's not "threatened with extinction" yet, but "trade must be controlled to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival."

This isn't just a plant. It's a controlled substance. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service regulates its export. Each state has its own harvest season—strictly in the fall. There are age and size rules. You can't just go digging.^{7}

But the price for wild, old root can hit $1,000 a pound. That kind of money creates a black market. Poachers dig "green" (out of season, before the seeds are viable). They dig young, 2-prong plants, killing the next generation. They trespass on private and national forest land. This is the dark side of the tradition—a resource being loved to death.

The Science: So, does it work? The multi-billion dollar global market says yes. The science is... complicated. The active compounds are ginsenosides. These are a class of triterpenoid saponins. Different ginsenosides (labeled Rb1, Rg1, etc.) appear to have different, sometimes opposing, effects.

It's often called an "adaptogen," a weasel-word I hate, which basically means it helps the body "adapt" to stress. The data is messy. There's some evidence it can help modulate blood sugar, boost the immune system, and perhaps improve cognitive function. But for every positive study, there's a negative or inconclusive one.

The Brew: In Appalachia, the good roots were never brewed. They were sold. You didn't drink a twenty-dollar bill. If you made a tea, it was from a "cull" root—one that was broken, or too small for the broker. It's a decoction, a slow, patient simmer of the dried root. The taste is profound. It's bitter, earthy, and sweet, all at once. It tastes exactly like the damp, rich, black soil it came from.

The Extended Cabinet: More Mountain Teas

While ginseng was gold and sassafras was the spring tonic, the daily cabinet was full of other, more common, workhorse plants.

Sumac: The Appalachian Lemonade

The Plant: Rhus glabra (Smooth Sumac) or Rhus typhina (Staghorn Sumac). This is the one with the fuzzy, upright, red berry clusters (drupes). It is not Poison Sumac (Toxicodendron vernix), a toxic mimic which grows in swamps and has white berries. The rule is simple: "Red is edible."

The History: This was the mountain sour. In a world without cheap lemons, sumac provided the tartness.

The Brew: This is a cold infusion. This is critical. You never use hot water. Boiling releases bitter tannins from the stems and seeds, ruining the drink. The method is simple: gather the red drupe clusters in late summer, crush them slightly, and let them steep in a pitcher of cold water for a few hours (or overnight in the fridge). The water turns a beautiful pinkish-red. Strain it through a cheesecloth or a clean t-shirt—this is essential to remove the fine, irritating hairs from the berries.

The Science: The tartness comes mainly from malic and citric acids; always cold-steep and fine-strain to avoid tannins and hairs. The drupes are also high in Vitamin C. It's a simple, effective, and perfectly safe way to make a refreshing drink. Zero caffeine, zero cost. Pure ingenuity.

The Mints: The Holler's Aromatics

The Plants: The Lamiaceae family. You know them by their square stems and opposite leaves. This family is huge and includes mountain staples like Monarda didyma (Bee Balm/Oswego Tea), Pycnanthemum muticum (Mountain Mint), and Glecoma hederacea (Ground Ivy, or "Creeping Charlie").

The History: Mints were the easy ones. They grew aggressively, were simple to identify, and tasted good. Bee Balm, with its showy red flower, is the most famous. The Oswego tribe showed it to settlers, and it became a primary substitute for black tea, especially after the Boston Tea Party. It's not just "minty"; its flavor is floral and citrusy, very similar to bergamot orange (which flavors Earl Grey tea).

The Brew: An infusion, always. Hot water over the fresh or dried leaves and flowers. Boiling mints makes them taste like cooked spinach and destroys the delicate volatile oils.

The Science: The key is the cocktail of volatile oils. Bee Balm contains geraniol (rose-like) and thymol.$^{8}$ Thymol is a powerful antiseptic, the same active compound in Thyme and, notably, the original Listerine. So, a "tea" for a sore throat or upset stomach? That's sound chemistry.

Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum) is even more potent. It's loaded with pulegone, the same compound that makes Pennyroyal famous... and dangerous. Pulegone, in high, concentrated doses (like pennyroyal essential oil), is highly hepatotoxic. But in a simple, weak infusion of a few leaves? The dose is tiny. Still, it's a stark reminder that even the "safe" mint family has a chemical dark side.

Sweet Fern: The Resinous Deceiver

The Plant: Comptonia peregrina. First, it is not a fern. It's a low-growing, deciduous shrub. It gets its name from its leaves, which are deeply toothed and look like a fern frond. You find it on dry, poor, acidic soil—the kind of place where nothing else wants to grow.

The Experience: Crush a leaf. The aroma is immediate, resinous, and spicy. It's a unique scent, somewhere between bay leaf and a pine forest.

The Brew: A simple infusion of the fresh or dried leaves. This was a common, pleasant-tasting tea. Because of its astringency, it was also used as a topical wash for poison ivy, where its tannins would help dry up the weeping rash.

The Science (The Brown-down): The plant is high in tannins, which explains its astringent (puckering) quality and its use as a wash. The aroma comes from a complex blend of volatile oils, including myricetin. It’s a safe, simple, aromatic beverage.

Partridgeberry: The Woman's Plant

The Plant: Mitchella repens. A beautiful, tiny, creeping vine that carpets the forest floor. You know it by its paired, dark-green, waxy leaves; its paired, trumpet-like white flowers; and its single, bright-red, edible-but-bland berry.

The History: This was a "woman's plant." The Foxfire books are full of references to partridgeberry tea. It was a "partus preparator"—a tea taken by pregnant women in the weeks leading up to childbirth. The belief was that it "toned the uterus" and made for an easier, safer delivery.$^{9}$

The Brew: An infusion of the leaves and vine. The flavor is mild, slightly green and astringent.

The Science (The Brown-down): This is where the science... stops. The plant contains tannins and some alkaloids, but there are no modern clinical trials to support its use as a uterine tonic. This is a prime example of knowledge that exists entirely within the cultural and folkloric record. It was used because generations of women said it worked. In a world without an OB/GYN, that was all the data you had.

The Modern Kettle: Revival, Regulation, and the Etsy-fication of the Holler

This knowledge, this grit, this whole unwritten pharmacopoeia, is now being rediscovered. Or, more accurately, repackaged.

We are in a moment of "artisanal" everything. Craft tea blenders are selling "Appalachian Chai" with spicebush. Bartenders in Asheville and Nashville are charging $22 for a "Sassafras Old Fashioned." Farmers' market stalls are piled high with "wild-foraged" herbs.

This revival is a complicated, thorny thing. It's driven by a genuine hunger for authenticity, for real flavor, for a connection to a specific place. But it’s also a business. And that business operates in a legal and ethical minefield.

The Legal Minefield: How do you legally sell this stuff?

  1. FDA & DSHEA (1994): The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. This is the Wild West. This law created the "supplement" industry, and it's a game of semantics. You can sell a bottle of yellowroot capsules, but you cannot make a medical claim. You can't say, "Yellowroot cures infections." You can say, "Yellowroot supports a healthy immune response." You can't say, "Boneset breaks a fever." You can say, "Boneset is a traditional diaphoretic." It's a lawyer's game, and it protects the seller, not always the consumer.

  2. The "Not for Consumption" Dodge: This is how you find sassafras root bark or comfrey leaf on Etsy. It's labeled "For Potpourri," "For External Use Only," or "Botanical Specimen." This is a legal fiction. The seller has plausible deniability. The buyer knows exactly what they're going to do with it.

  3. GRAS: "Generally Recognized As Safe." This is an FDA designation. Spicebush? Yes. Pine? Yes. Sumac? Yes. But many of the medicinal plants—yellowroot, boneset, ginseng—are not GRAS. They exist in this legal gray market, sold as "supplements" or under a legal dodge.

The "Wildcrafting" Problem: This is the ethical minefield. The word is "wildcrafting." The reality, too often, is "wild-stripping." When a forager with a restaurant contract clear-cuts an entire patch of ramps (wild leeks) to sell in the city, that's not "craft." It's strip-mining. When poachers take every ginseng root, regardless of age, they are erasing the plant from that cove forever.

The old-timers, the ones who lived there, knew the first rule: Don't kill your source. You never take the whole patch. You always leave the biggest and the smallest. You always replant the seeds. This new, commercial hunger often ignores that stewardship.

The Good: But there is a good side. The positive, sustainable solution is forest farming. Instead of just taking from the wild, people are now cultivating these plants in their natural habitat. They're growing ginseng under a simulated wild canopy. They're planting spicebush, goldenseal, and yellowroot as understory crops. This is the Foxfire ideal, updated. It provides income for rural communities. It protects the wild populations. It preserves both the plant and the knowledge. This is stewardship, not just extraction.

The Honey Connection: Taming the Bitter

You can't talk about these teas, especially the bitter medicinal ones, without talking about the sweetener. It wasn't the white, processed sugar from a sack, which was a commodity. It was honey, which was local, available, and pharmacologically active itself.

The Chemistry: This is the Brown-down. Honey is not just sugar. Table sugar is sucrose. Honey is an invert sugar, a supersaturated solution of fructose and glucose. Crucially, it's also acidic. Thanks to the enzyme glucose oxidase, which bees add, honey contains gluconic acid. Its pH is typically between 3.2 and 4.5.$^{10}$

The Pairing: Why does this matter?

  1. Balancing Alkaloids: Many of the most bitter medicinal compounds—like the berberine in yellowroot—are alkaloids. Alkaloids are "basic." Honey's acidity chemically balances them. It's a reaction on your tongue, not just a mask.

  2. Taming Tannins: Honey's complex sugars and proteins can bind with tannins (the astringent compounds in sumac or pine), reducing that "dry" mouthfeel.

  3. Flavor, Not Just Sweetness: Mountain honeys—Sourwood, Basswood, Buckwheat, Tulip Poplar—are not one-note sweet. They are complex. Sourwood has a spicy, anise-like finish. Buckwheat is malty and robust. They add a new layer of flavor, they don't just cover the old one.

The Offshoots: This deep, practical knowledge of acid and sweet led to other crafts.

  • Oxymels: From the Greek oxymeli, or "acid-honey." This was a primary way to make medicine. You steep a bitter herb (like yellowroot, or even boneset) in vinegar (the acid) for weeks. Then you strain the vinegar and mix it with honey (the sweet). The result is a shelf-stable, surprisingly palatable syrup. It's a non-alcoholic tincture.

  • Mead: The oldest booze. Fermented honey. Mountain people made "honey wine." Sometimes they'd infuse it with sassafras, spicebush, or ginger. It was another way to preserve the harvest, the flavor, and the calories.

The Last Word

So where does this leave us? We're a long way from the unchinked cabin and the iron kettle.

I'm standing on my back porch. It's a cold morning. I can boil water in 90 seconds with an electric kettle. I have a box of Lipton black tea bags. I also have a small bundle of spicebush twigs I gathered from the creek bank yesterday.

The difference, the only difference that matters, is choice. This is the great modern luxury.

It is tempting to romanticize this. To see this "mountain tea" craft as a pure, noble, "back-to-the-land" story. This is a lie. It's a disservice to the people who lived it.

The woman who brewed boneset tea for her feverish, sweating child would have wept with gratitude for a single blister-pack of Tylenol. The man who drank pine needle tea all winter to keep his gums from bleeding would have traded his entire holler for one fresh orange. We must not, ever, romanticize their necessity. Their lives were hard, their choices were few, and their medicine was often a high-stakes gamble.

But to forget this knowledge is also a loss. To walk past a spicebush and see only a "bush." To mistake a sassafras for a "weed." To not know that the yellow root in the creek bank is a chemical powerhouse. That is a different kind of poverty. It's a disconnection.

The real value, then, isn't in "going back." It's in the knowledge. It's in the respect.

Respect for the grit of the people who figured this out by trial and, too often, fatal error.

Respect for the chemistry. The understanding that a plant is not a "thing"—it's a packet of complex compounds. Some nourish. Some heal. Some will stop your liver, cold.

And respect for the land itself. The understanding that it provides.

To drink from the land, without nostalgia, is to accept a basic, humbling contract. It's to understand that the world is full of flavor, medicine, and risk. The craft, then and now, is simply paying attention. It's knowing the difference. It's understanding what you are drinking, and why. In a world of sterile boxes and shrink-wrapped food, that knowledge is the last, real, authentic ingredient.

Footnotes

^{1} U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 21 C.F.R. 189.180 (Code of Federal Regulations). "Safrole in food." This regulation explicitly bans the use of safrole, sassafras oil, and sassafras bark as food additives.

^{2} Cartier, Jacques. (1545). A Shorte and Briefe Narration of the Two Navigations and Discoveries to the Northweast Partes Called Newe Fraunce. The account details his crew's recovery from scurvy using a tree called "Annedda," believed to be Thuja occidentalis (Eastern White Cedar) or a similar conifer.

^{3} Cushnie, T. P., & Lamb, A. J. (2005). "Antimicrobial activity of flavonoids." International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, 26(5), 343-356. This review covers the mechanisms by which berberine and other flavonoids inhibit microbial growth.

^{4} Yin, J., Xing, H., & Ye, J. (2008). "Efficacy of berberine in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus." Metabolism, 57(5), 712-717. This human clinical trial compared berberine to Metformin, finding it had comparable effects on glucose metabolism.

^{5} Fu, P. P., Xia, Q., Lin, G., & Chou, M. W. (2004). "Pyrrolizidine alkaloids—genotoxicity, metabolism enzymes, metabolic activation, and mechanisms." Drug Metabolism Reviews, 36(1), 1-55. A comprehensive review of the toxicology and hepatotoxicity of PAs found in Comfrey, Coltsfoot, and Eupatorium species.

^{6} Wigginton, Eliot, Ed. (1972). The Foxfire Book. Doubleday. This book, and its subsequent volumes, are the primary source for 20th-century Appalachian oral history on folk medicine, hunting, and daily crafts, including "sanging."

^{7} U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. (2023). "American Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius)." CITES Appendix II listing and export regulations for the species.

^{8} Káňová, J., & Dvořák, J. (2021). "Chemical composition of essential oil from Monarda didyma L. (Oswego tea)." Foods, 10(9), 2097. Analysis identifying thymol, p-cymene, and geraniol as major components.

^{9} Wigginton, Eliot, Ed. (1973). Foxfire 2. Doubleday. Contains specific interviews and accounts regarding the use of partridgeberry and other plants in pregnancy and childbirth.

^{10} National Honey Board. "Chemistry of Honey." Provides data on the average pH, and the enzymatic action (glucose oxidase) that creates gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide.

Back to blog