The cupboard
Kitchen herbs & spices
Filter by element or search a plant. Traditional kitchen and folk use — four tastes, not a clinic monograph.
Earth· sweetSweet first warms, then cools, and it softens. It is relaxing — the reason sugar went into cough syrups — nutritive, building, and hormonally active. Sweet herbs feed the brain and nerves, nourish spleen and pancreas, and coat dry tissue. They cleanse by moving blood toward the organs that wash it.
3 plants
Star anise
Illicium verum
One star that perfumes a whole pot of broth or tea.
Cough · Bloating · Chill & congestion
Ground, build, and settle
Holy basil
Ocimum tenuiflorum
Tulsi — the daily cup for a long, demanding season.
Frayed nerves · Chill & congestion · Dull focus
Ground, build, and settle
Sweet goldenrod
Solidago odora
The goldenrod you can drink — anise in a late-summer leaf.
Indigestion · Chill & congestion
Ground, build, and settle