The Soaked Bean

Seeking Nourishment, Finding Traditions

Collaboration Celebration #4: Emulee’s Hug in a Mug (Rose/Cardamon Infusion)

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This week’s contribution comes from a dear friend who also happens to be a fantastik herbalist.  Emulee and I met while working on a farm in Northern Michigan and quickly bonded over a love of singing (90’s songs, specifically) while out in the field, Space Jam, and fruit bars.  She’s currently walking the red-road (back-packing through her ancestral Eastern-European lands) and she just started her own blog where she shares her herbal (& other) wisdom here.

There’s nothing like a hot cup of herbal infusion…NOTHING!

I know that statement doesn’t have the same ring to it as saying “there’s nothing like a cup of tea”, which is also true, but they really are two different things. The only true “tea” is brewed from the actual tea plant, Camellia sinensis, which most of us know as green, black, or white tea (it’s all the same plant!).

Infusions are other herbs steeped in hot water, better known as “herbal teas” to most people.  Even as a longtime herb nerd, I only recently got into the habit of watching my language when differentiating these two classic beverages. Actually,  it was Lauren who instigated this. I recently visited this dear friend and fellow blogger at her home in Switzerland and we had a lovely time together sauna-ing, eating, and drinking infusions, or tisanes as they call them in Swiss French.

I love that Francophones have a simple word for this, whereas in English most people say “herbal tea” which is inaccurate and misleading. I realize that it’s much easier to call them teas than infusions, but I will be referring to them as infusions from here on out.

And…I am so excited to share one of my new favorite herbal infusions with you all! It is one that was introduced to me by a new friend in Germany just before I visited Lauren, and it is a simple blend I will probably be drinking for years to come: rose and cardomom.

rose/card

Out here on the road, I’ve found myself missing my home nearly every day. The family, friends, familiar herbs and trees, the hugs shared daily with so many loved ones. The first night I had this blend, I was having a particularly hard time being separated from my Northern Michigan tribe and adjusting to the cold, gloomy, snow-less European winter. As I sipped, I could hardly believe the warmth and comfort this lovely beverage offered. I couldn’t wait to share it with all my infusion-loving friends!

There are several reasons why rose and cardamom infusion is such a feel – good beverage. On the physical level, rose (Rosa spp.) has many actions, including antidepressant, antispasmodic,  aphrodisiac,  asringent, antibacterial,  antiviral,  anti-inflammatory,  cleansing,  expectorant,  and menstrual-regulating, just to name a few.

Cardomom is pungent, spicy and warming. It increases circulation and digestion, and like rose, is also classified as an aphrodisiac.

infusion

Now to get a little witchy – woo on you: in the tradition of Plant Spirit Medicine, rose flower essence heals the emotional heart. It brings comfort and openness. Cardomom essence increases warmth on all levels, stimulates creativity, and enhances concentration.

Now that it’s finally spring,  I am still enjoying the comfort and giddiness this tea brings every bit as much as I did in winter. I think it would even be good and refreshing as an iced infusion in the summer.

Whatever your timing and reasons for indulging in this lovely herbal friend, I wish you happy spring tidings of warmth, good digestion and creativity! Happy infusing!

Article by Emily Reisick.  Photography by Lucas Olivet.

Herbal Refreshment: Nettle Infusion

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It’s high-time I come clean.  I could always go for an herbal refreshment.

Full disclosure:  I’ve hardly gone a single day this winter without one.

Y’all know what I’m talking about.  Herb, those hyper-potent, dense-green stems and leaves that can be found far and wide.  Weed, or “a plant in the wrong place” that grows in dewy patches during Spring.  Pot, with which you cook the fresh leaves into a nourishing soup.

nettlegreen

Sweet stinging nettle, you’re chronic.

(We were all talking about Nettle, right?)

Right.  Stinging nettle, or, for ye Latin lovers amongst us, urtica dioica, is a major herbal ally for me.  Yes, I said it, herbal ally, or an herb that you’ve found (or often enough, that has found you) to hold a kind of nourishment that is particularly beneficial to your kind of healing.

nettlebag

Nettle is an herb that has grown in every single country I’ve traveled.  Two summer’s ago, after discovering Susun Weed’s Healing Wise–a delightful take on the restorative qualities of seven common herbs that are sometimes called “weeds”–I learned all the ways in which nettle is oh-so-nourishing for me, specifically me with almost every one of my ailments–arthritic fingers, weak veins, eczema–addressed by this plant.  You can imagine my bemusement, when, last year, in Vancouver, I ended up renting a place with a garden with a planter filled with nettle, just as the seasons shifted to Spring (prime-time for the harvest of nettle’s stems and leaves).

During winter, when fresh nettle is a dream of sunnier days, I stay in touch with this ally through infusions of its dried leaves. Yes, infusions, not tea.  The herbal tea you’re thinking of–bag steeped for two, at most ten minutes–is a world’s away from this herbal refreshment: one steeped for a minimum of four hours with a resulting liquid that is dark and thick, nearing syrup, and containing all of the nourishing properties that that herbal tea (or cup of warm, flavored water) lacks.

nettleinfus Nettle is a profoundly nourishing herb.  It’s high content of nutrients like protein, Chlorophyll, vitamins A and K, the B-vitamins, Calcium, Magnesium and trace minerals Zinc, Chromium, Copper, Coblat, Iron, Sulphur, Silica are bioavailable meaning they’re readily absorbed by all soft tissue and working fluids in our bodies, increasing the ease and efficiency in which our circulatory, endocrine, nervous, urinary and immune systems function (Weed, 172).

Nettle is mainly known for its action as an antiallergenic, treating symptoms of hay fever, asthma and eczema, but its healing prowess is far vaster than that.  It is, as Weed terms, a kidney and adrenal ally, a digestive restorative–for ailments ranging from stomach ulcers to constipation to hemmorrhoids–, a respiratory strengthener, a women’s ally–in reproductive and hormonal systems–, an energetic changer–Weed purports that nettle’s sharp energy “cuts loose old patterns and reweaves connections” (Weed, 173).

Nettle is like many other healing herbs.  In order to benefit from its properties, you must consume a lot more of it than that herbal tea bag would lead you to believe.  Like the cases of other nourishing herbs–say, cinnamon or ginger (yep, they’re considered herbs)–one teaspoon or one bag of Yogi tea will not have the, in cinnamon’s case, blood-sugar stabilizing or, in ginger’s case, arthritis-healing effects that a larger amount, taken daily will.

Nettle is gentle.  On our bodies and on our Earth (because unlike say, cinnamon or ginger, it doesn’t have to be shipped to you from miles afar.  It doesn’t have to be cultivated.  It grows wild, perhaps even in your own backyard.)  In the way that it heals, on a cellular level, bringing change over a long period of time.  It’s exactly the kind of ally that I adore: daily nourishment from surrounding abundance.

nettlesteeped

I spent this past week in the mountains with my belle-famille for Geneva’s snow-break (a week-long holiday #Switzerland4thewin).  Of course, I brought along a bag of dried stinging Nettle to provide my in-laws with my favorite herbal refreshment.  My brother-in-law (salut Tanguy!) took a particular shine to it and I hope you do, too.

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Nettle Infusion

Ingredients

  • 1 ounce, or four full handfuls, of dried nettle

Directions

  1. Place ounce of nettles into a sealable glass vessel (I use a quart-sized mason jar).
  2. Pour hot water into jar until full and seal.
  3. Steep for 4 hours minimum, or overnight.
  4. Strain into clean jar and store in refrigerator (important, as the Nettle can spoil if left warm).
  5. Drink liberally throughout the day, everyday.

Do not add honey to your infusion. It's the opposite of pleasant.

Nettle is far tastier served cool than warm.

I’ll leave you w/ this mountain artifact.  Happy herbal-allying, friends!

backcow

References:
Weed, Susun.  Healing Wise. Ash Tree Publishing, Woodstock, NY. 1989