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OFFICINALIS

Value of the product · read by the cup

A bag is not the unit. The cup is.

A bag here costs between €5.40 and €9.80, which is more than a box of teabags and tells you nothing. Nobody drinks a bag. Divide each one by the dose printed on its own label and the catalogue comes to 1203 cups.

At that unit the whole range sits between €0.08 and €0.37 a cup. Both figures are divisions, not offers — the sums are printed below so you can check them.

The range, per cup

€0.08€0.37

Hop Cones
100 cups / bag
Mallow Flowers
25 cups / bag

Where a label gives a dose as a range, the sum takes the larger spoon. An honest cup count is the pessimistic one.

Net ÷ dose

The sum, done in public

Net quantity divided by the dose on the same label, rounded down to whole cups. Nothing here is a rate we set — every row is two numbers off a bag and a division you can repeat.

Every herb in the catalogue by cups per bag and cost per cup, cheapest cup first.
EntryNetDoseCupsBagPer cup
Hop Cones50 g1 tsp (≈ 0.5 g)100€8.00€0.08
Liquorice Root100 g1 tsp (≈ 1.5 g)66€6.80€0.10
Fennel Seed100 g1 tsp (≈ 2 g), freshly bruised50€5.40€0.11
Nettle Leaf100 g1.5 tsp (≈ 2 g)50€5.80€0.12
Peppermint Leaf80 g1.5 tsp (≈ 1.5 g)53€6.50€0.12
Small-flowered Willowherb60 g1 tsp (≈ 1 g)60€7.80€0.13
Aniseed80 g1 tsp (≈ 2 g), freshly bruised40€5.60€0.14
Lavender Flowers60 g1 tsp (≈ 1 g)60€8.60€0.14
Chamomile Flowers80 g1 tsp (≈ 1.5 g)53€7.80€0.15
Nettle Root100 g1 tsp (≈ 1.5 g)66€9.80€0.15
Thyme70 g1–2 tsp (≈ 1.5 g)46€7.00€0.15
Ribwort Plantain75 g2 tsp (≈ 2 g)37€6.20€0.17
Shepherd's Purse75 g2 tsp (≈ 2 g)37€6.20€0.17
Yarrow75 g2 tsp (≈ 2 g)37€6.40€0.17
Hawthorn Leaf & Flower70 g1 tsp (≈ 1.5 g)46€8.20€0.18
Dandelion Root & Herb100 g1 tbsp (≈ 3 g)33€6.00€0.18
Rosemary Leaf70 g1 tsp (≈ 2 g)35€6.60€0.19
Sage Leaf70 g1 tsp (≈ 2 g)35€6.90€0.20
St John's Wort75 g2 tsp (≈ 2 g)37€7.60€0.21
Lady's Mantle70 g1–2 tsp (≈ 2 g)35€7.40€0.21
Milk Thistle Seed100 g1 tsp (≈ 3 g), freshly ground33€7.20€0.22
Lemon Balm Leaf60 g2 tsp (≈ 2 g)30€7.20€0.24
Elderflower60 g2 tsp (≈ 2 g)30€7.60€0.25
Valerian Root100 g2 tsp (≈ 3 g)33€9.40€0.28
Calendula Flowers50 g1–2 tsp (≈ 1–2 g)25€8.40€0.34
Marshmallow Root80 g1 tbsp (≈ 3 g)26€9.00€0.35
Linden Blossom50 g2 tsp (≈ 2 g)25€8.80€0.35
Mallow Flowers50 g2 tsp (≈ 2 g)25€9.20€0.37

The dearest cup in the catalogue is roughly four times the cheapest, and the reason is weight rather than margin: a flower that weighs almost nothing needs two teaspoons to fill a cup, while a cone needs half of one.

Four things, itemised

What the difference buys

Four costs sit between a graded, blended, unlabelled bag and this one. Each is a decision made on the bench, and each one is visible somewhere in the catalogue.

  • In the price

    A field you could drive to

    Buying single lots costs more than buying graded, blended stock, and it is the reason a bag can name a place rather than a continent. It also means a bad year in one region shows up as an entry going out of the catalogue instead of quietly changing character.

    18 named origins

    12 of the entries gathered rather than grown

  • In the price

    The part, not the plant

    Stalk is heavy, cheap and legal to sell you. Sieving it off is the single largest loss on the bench and the thing you are least able to check by eye once a herb is cut small.

    6 plant parts

    2 more left uncut rather than bought in

  • In the price

    A batch you can quote back

    Every bag carries the lot it was filled from, which is what lets a naturopath or a pharmacist put it into a dispensary record — and what lets us find every other bag from the same field if something is wrong with one.

    28 lot numbers

    one per entry, printed beside the drug name

  • In the price

    The preparation, printed

    Working out the temperature, the dose and the contraindications for a plant takes longer than filling the bag does. It is on the label because a herb you brew wrong has cost you the whole bag, not the difference between two brands.

    54 cautions

    and 28 water temperatures, none of them optional

The expensive mistake

The cheapest way to waste money here is a kettle.

Marshmallow Root is set in water at 20 °C because the mucilage it is taken for is destroyed by heat. Pour boiling water on it and you have not made a weaker tea — you have made starch water, and the bag is gone. That is €9.00 and 26 cups, lost to a detail nobody told you.

2 of the 28 entries are like this. It is the reason the temperature is printed on the bag rather than left to a search engine, and it is most of what the difference in price is for.

Read the Marshmallow Root preparation

Not in the price

  • A house blend

    Blending is where the weak half of a mixture goes to hide. You can mix two of ours in the cup and know the proportion.

  • A tin, a ribbon or a second box

    Dried herb wants dark, dry and sealed. Everything past that is packaging you pay for once and bin once.

  • A marketing name for the plant

    It is Matricaria chamomilla on the label because that is the name a pharmacist, a doctor and a botanist all recognise.

  • A claim we cannot stand behind

    Traditional use is written as traditional use. Nothing in the catalogue is offered as a treatment for anything.

Buy one bag and do the sum yourself.

Weigh the spoon, count the cups, and see whether the number on this page holds. It is the only claim on the site that you can settle in your own kitchen.

All 28 herbs

1203 cups in the catalogue