Flos ChamomillaeLOT 24-0417
Cultivated
Chamomile Flowers
Matricaria chamomilla L.
Hay-sweet, faint apple, a warm bitterness underneath.
Flos · Flower80 g
€7.80€9.75 / 100 g
Single herbs · one species to a bag
A herb brewed wrong is a herb wasted.
OFFICINALIS is a herbal apothecary in the plain sense of the phrase: 28 medicinal plants, each from one named origin, cut and dried on its own terms. The preparation is printed on the label with the batch number, because most of what goes wrong with a herbal tea goes wrong in the cup and not in the field.
Plate IHarvest May–Jul
- Herbs in the catalogue
- 28
- single plants, never blends
- Drawers by indication
- 8
- filed as a dispensary files
- Named origins
- 18
- each printed on its label
- Wild-gathered
- 12
- 43% of the catalogue
- Peak of the harvest
- Jun
- 17 herbs gathered
The House
What the house actually does
We buy single lots, cut them here, and dry each one at the temperature the plant will tolerate rather than the temperature that empties the drying room fastest. Chamomile goes into the shade at 40 °C so the volatile oil stays in the flower. Thyme is rubbed off the stem instead of chopped, so what you weigh is leaf and flower and not woody stalk. Fennel is sold whole, because the oil sits in the seed coat and starts leaving the moment it is broken.
Nothing is blended. One plant, one bag, one origin, one batch number — which is the only way a herb can be traced back to the field it came out of.
We would rather sell you one herb you brew properly than four you brew like teabags.
Two people buy from us, and they want opposite things from the same bag. One is treating themselves at home and has never been told that marshmallow root is ruined by boiling water — so the preparation has to be on the label, in full, before they open it.
The other is a naturopath or a pharmacist who resells, and needs the drug name, the batch, the origin and the net quantity written where they can be copied into a dispensary record without a phone call. Both get the same label. Neither gets a marketing name for the plant.
How the house works
Five stations, one label
A bag passes through five hands here, and each one is answerable for a single line of what ends up printed on it. Follow the stations across and the label writes itself — this one is the Chamomile Flowers label, as it is printed today.
- 01
The lot
One grower, one field, one cutting date. We buy the lot whole rather than a graded blend of four, which is why a bag can be traced back to a place instead of to a warehouse.
Origin
Uckermark, Brandenburg · Cultivated
- 02
The bench
Cut and sieved down to the part that belongs in the cup. Stalk, grit and the fines that would go straight through a strainer come out here, and what is left is weighed.
Plant part
Flos · Flos Chamomillae
- 03
The drying room
Each species at the temperature it will tolerate, not the one that empties the room fastest. Shade for the flowers, low and slow for the roots. The lot keeps its own number from here on.
Batch
LOT 24-0417
- 04
The label
The preparation is set in type at the same moment as the batch number, because a herb without its water temperature is only half sold. Dose, frequency and cautions are printed, not linked to.
Preparation
95 °C · 1 tsp (≈ 1.5 g) · 3× daily
- 05
The counter
Weighed to net, sealed against light and damp, and carried out with the insert folded in. Nothing is decanted into a second bag on the way to you.
Net · Price
80 g · €7.80
Five fields, and none of them optional. A bag that cannot answer all five does not get a label, and a bag without a label does not reach the counter.
Filed by indication
The Herb Cabinet
Not by plant family, and not by what sells — by what you would reach for. A herb is filed in every drawer it serves, so these counts deliberately add up to more than the 28 species in the catalogue.
- Sleep & CalmRoots and cones taken in the evening.6 herbs
- DigestionBitters and carminatives for after the table.15 herbs
- AirwaysMucilage and volatile oils for the chest and throat.11 herbs
- Skin & WoundsFor compresses, washes and salves.8 herbs
- Heart & CirculationSlow herbs, taken as a course rather than a dose.3 herbs
- Liver & BileThe bitter shelf. Nothing here tastes pleasant.3 herbs
- Kidney & BladderFlushing herbs — always taken with plenty of water.5 herbs
- Mood & NervesLight-loving plants for the darker months.5 herbs
Selection
What we would put in front of you first
Not best sellers — we do not publish those. These are the ones we hand to someone who asks where to start: 4 plant parts across 4 drawers, from the flower you keep covered while it steeps to the fruit you crush before you pour.
The preparation · the argument
The preparation is the product.
Marshmallow root and mallow flowers sit in the same drawer — Airways — and are often taken together. Pour boiling water on either and you have destroyed the one thing you bought them for. Hawthorn, two drawers over, wants exactly that boiling water and then far longer than anyone leaves it. Same shelf, same kettle, three different answers.
Radix Althaeae
Marshmallow Root
Althaea officinalis
20°C
Brewing temperature · 60 min
Cold water, or you have made starch water. The mucilage that does the work is destroyed by heat, so this root is left to stand at room temperature and only warmed — gently — once it has been strained.
Notice
- May slow the absorption of other medicines — leave a gap of an hour either side.
Flos Malvae
Mallow Flowers
Malva sylvestris
60°C
Brewing temperature · 30 min
Hand-warm at most. Take it hotter and the mucilage flattens; the blue-grey colour goes with it, which is the tell.
Notice
- May slow the absorption of other medicines — leave a gap of an hour either side.
Folium Crataegi cum Flore
Hawthorn Leaf & Flower
Crataegus monogyna
95°C
Brewing temperature · 20 min
Boiling water, and then patience. The procyanidins are slow to leave the leaf, and this is a herb taken as a course of weeks rather than as an afternoon drink.
Notice
- Speak to a doctor before use if you are being treated for a heart condition or take cardiac medication.
- Seek medical advice for chest pain, breathlessness or swelling of the legs.
Read the year first
The shelf follows the field
Nothing here is made to order. A flower cut a fortnight late is a different drug, and a root lifted before the plant has pulled its stores back down is mostly water — so the catalogue fills and empties with the year rather than with demand. Both readings below are counted out of the same file the shop sells from.
Harvest Calendar
The gathering year, read as a ring
Each spoke is a month, and its length is the number of herbs in the cabinet cut in it. The year is lopsided on purpose: 17 of the 28 come in during Jun alone, when leaf and flower carry the most oil and the window to catch them is measured in days.
Roots run against that. All 5 of them are lifted between Sep and Nov, once the plant has pulled its stores back underground. 3 months carry nothing at all — the shop lives those weeks on what was dried.
A herb gathered across three months is counted in all three, so the ring totals more than the 28 it is drawn from.
Hover, tap or tab a month
| Month | Herbs gathered | Names |
|---|---|---|
| Jan | 0 | None |
| Feb | 0 | None |
| Mar | 1 | Dandelion Root & Herb |
| Apr | 3 | Nettle Leaf, Dandelion Root & Herb, Shepherd's Purse |
| May | 8 | Chamomile Flowers, Sage Leaf, Ribwort Plantain, Nettle Leaf, Hawthorn Leaf & Flower, Elderflower, Rosemary Leaf, Shepherd's Purse |
| Jun | 17 | Chamomile Flowers, Lemon Balm Leaf, Peppermint Leaf, Sage Leaf, Calendula Flowers, St John's Wort, Linden Blossom, Ribwort Plantain, Thyme, Nettle Leaf, Hawthorn Leaf & Flower, Yarrow, Elderflower, Mallow Flowers, Rosemary Leaf, Lady's Mantle, Shepherd's Purse |
| Jul | 13 | Chamomile Flowers, Lemon Balm Leaf, Peppermint Leaf, Calendula Flowers, St John's Wort, Linden Blossom, Ribwort Plantain, Thyme, Yarrow, Lavender Flowers, Mallow Flowers, Lady's Mantle, Small-flowered Willowherb |
| Aug | 13 | Lemon Balm Leaf, Peppermint Leaf, Calendula Flowers, Fennel Seed, Ribwort Plantain, Yarrow, Lavender Flowers, Milk Thistle Seed, Hop Cones, Aniseed, Mallow Flowers, Lady's Mantle, Small-flowered Willowherb |
| Sep | 10 | Valerian Root, Sage Leaf, Calendula Flowers, Fennel Seed, Milk Thistle Seed, Hop Cones, Aniseed, Dandelion Root & Herb, Rosemary Leaf, Nettle Root |
| Oct | 5 | Valerian Root, Marshmallow Root, Liquorice Root, Dandelion Root & Herb, Nettle Root |
| Nov | 2 | Marshmallow Root, Liquorice Root |
| Dec | 0 | None |
Stock-take
The cabinet, counted
Nothing on this page is a marketing figure. Each number below is counted out of the same file the shop reads from — take a herb out of the cabinet and the count drops with it.
- Species in the cabinet
- 28
- Indication drawers
- 8
- Named growing regions
- 18
- Plant parts stocked
- 6
- Wild-gathered
- 12
By plant part
6 of the 8 parts a pharmacopoeia names are represented. The part decides almost everything downstream — when it is cut, how hard it may be brewed, how long it keeps.
- Herba · Aerial parts7
- Flos · Flower6
- Folium · Leaf6
- Radix · Root5
- Fructus · Fruit3
- Strobulus · Cone1
28 herbs · one part each
Gathered against grown
12 of the 28 are taken from the wild rather than sown, which is why their harvest windows are short and cannot be moved.
Wild-gathered
1243 %
Cultivated
1657 %
Every bag leaves with its instructions.
Read the temperature before you fill the kettle. Everything else — what to measure, how long to leave it, what not to take it alongside — is on the label and repeated in full on the product page.
See all 28 herbs
Prices €5.40 – €9.80 per bag