Podcast 173: Angelica & Artemisia dracunculus

Episode Transcript

Katja (00:02):
HI, I’m Katja.

Ryn (00:15):
And I’m Ryn.

Katja (00:15):
And we’re here at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism in Boston, Massachusetts.

Ryn (00:19):
And on the internet everywhere thanks to the power of the podcast. Okay. So we’re going to be continuing our herbs A to Z series. And today we’re going to be talking about angelica. Mostly about Angelica archangelica, but we’ll mention a couple others on the way. And then we’re also going to be talking…

Katja (00:37):
I will not. I will just be singing love songs to Angelica archangelica.

Ryn (00:42):
There’s plenty to say about it. I mean, that’s going to take a minute.

Katja (00:45):
I have eyes only for archangelica.

Ryn (00:49):
Yeah. And then we’re going to start with Artemesias. I think our whole next episode is going to be about mugwort and about wormwood. But today we’re going to start with Artemisia dracunculus, which you may know better as tarragon. But I will take any opportunity to say Artemisia dracunculus.

Katja (01:09):
Right. Yes.

Ryn (01:11):
So that’s what we’re up to today. But first we’re going to remind you that we are not doctors. We are herbalists and holistic health educators.

Katja (01:20):
The ideas discussed in this podcast do not constitute medical advice. No state or federal authority licenses herbalists in the United States. So these discussions are for educational purposes only.

Ryn (01:31):
We want to remind you that good health doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone. Good health doesn’t exist as an objective standard. It’s influenced by your individual needs, experiences, and goals. So, we’re not trying to present one dogmatic right way that you should adhere to.

Katja (01:46):
Everybody’s body is different. So, the things that we’re talking about may or may not apply directly to you. But we hope that they’ll give you some good information to think about, and some ideas to research further.

Ryn (01:57):
Finding your way to better health is both your right and your own personal responsibility. This doesn’t mean you’re alone on the journey. But it does mean that the final decision when considering any course of action, whether it’s discussed on the internet or prescribed by a physician, is always yours to make. And we also want to take a moment and thank Mountain Rose for sponsoring this episode.

Katja (02:16):
Yes. and actually I have a funny Mountain Rose Herbs website story this week. This week we had a live business mentorship session. And we were talking about stress and the world. And how to handle it when you’re trying to build a business, and you want to pull your hair out. And I was saying how much I’ve been appreciating teasel tincture lately. And that it’s been really giving me the emotional feeling of being able to bounce back from, you know, whatever is going on in the day. Or you do a bunch of work and then something crashes and you lost it all, or whatever else.

Ryn (02:59):
Yeah. Fun stuff.

Katja (03:00):
Right? And so while I was talking about it, I was holding my big bottle of teasel tincture in front of the camera, because we do those live mentorships on zoom. And one of the business herbalists was saying, wait a minute. Is that a Mountain Rose Herbs label on that tincture? And I said, yes. And she said, hold on, hold on, hold on. Mountain Rose Herbs sells tinctures? And I was like, yes.

Ryn (03:30):
Yeah, we noticed that ourselves not too long ago. Yeah. Actually I remember I noticed that when I was looking for like a four ounce size of some kava tincture for a client of mine, trying to help them find it. And I looked in a bunch of places, and then suddenly one of the results was for Mountain Rose. And I thought that can’t be right, but I’ll click it anyway.

Katja (03:48):
But it’s totally right.

Ryn (03:49):
And there it was. Tincture available in many sizes.

Katja (03:53):
And listen, I was also really excited. Because recently I was working with a client, and I wanted to have goldenrod tincture for her. And I was thinking oh man. Where am I going to find goldenrod tincture for her? I mean I figured I probably could find some on Etsy, and probably it would be good. But I was like I really just want really good goldenrod tincture for her. And I don’t know where I’m going to find it, because it’s not as common. And guess what? In stock at Mountain Rose Herbs and beautiful. So, you know, a lot of the business herbalists in the mentorship were saying that they had been getting their bulk herbs from Mountain Rose for so long, but they never really noticed that they also have other stuff. But listen, they do. So, just in case you didn’t know that they have tinctures. Not only do they, but they have a really complete apothecary of tinctures, a really complete line of tinctures, both single extracts and blends. So, if you are a clinical herbalist. And you have been working pretty like primarily online because of COVID and whatever. And you’re thinking how am I going to get herbs to my people? Listen, you can just give them the links to Mountain Rose Herbs. And the stuff is there. It’s pretty amazing.

Ryn (05:15):
Yeah. Super handy. So, thanks Mountain Rose for sponsoring this episode. And thanks for doing all that you do to get herbs to people. If somehow you’ve gotten this far in life and you don’t know Mountain Rose Herbs, then find out more about them at mountainroseherbs.com. That’s the place. Okay. And now let’s get talking about angelica.

Katja (05:37):
Oh, I suddenly need to have planned out some poetry ahead of time. And you’re the one who’s actually good at that. Whether it’s planned ahead of time or spontaneous y’all, he’s really good.

Ryn (05:50):
It would need to be like Icelandic forms of poetry with the caesura in the middle, right? And lots of lots of rhyming sounds. Well, what’s the word? Alliteration sounds more than like an end line rhyming. Yeah.

Katja (06:05):
Here’s the thing. I want one.

Ryn (06:09):
All right. We’re going to work on that. We’ll have an update for you later on.

Angelica: Angelica archangelica & Where it Thrives

Katja (06:13):
I want one. All right. Well anyway, angelica. An herb that drives me to desire poetry. Wow, okay. Well, here’s the thing about angelica. This was not an herb that I started off with. This was an herb that I really have only been working with for maybe the last decade. Because when I was first learning herbalism, you know, sometimes you’d hear about Chinese angelica, dong quai. And you would hear like oh, it’s good for menstruation. And that was pretty much like that would be it. That’d be really all you heard about it. And that wasn’t very inspiring to me. So, it just never really was an herb that sort of took hold of me in a way. And there’s something wrong with that. Like that happens to everybody, just different herbs strike you at different times. And you get really excited about them and work with them a lot. And anyway Angelica just wasn’t one of those, until I don’t know. It was like I can’t even remember what got it started. It was before we went to Iceland I was starting to get really curious about it, and starting to just really think about it. Probably in comparison to calamus, because I do think about them very similarly. And it wasn’t until we got to Iceland though, that I finally was like I truly understood this plant. It was just one of those moments where I felt like… I can’t. I’m just like trying to mush my hands together. Like me and the plant just came together.

Ryn (08:12):
You had a moment.

Katja (08:13):
We had a moment, and here was the moment. Are you ready? Now I need to preface this by saying that angelica is not listed as an adaptogen anywhere. But I’m going to say that I think about it that way. So, that’s a Katja labeling, not necessarily an official herbal labeling, but here we go. So, we went to Iceland for our honeymoon, and it was the summer solstice. And so all the plants were just gorgeous and wonderful and amazing, and angelica there… And I had seen angelica growing in gardens here. No, no, no, no. The angelica in Iceland was taller than me.

Ryn (08:57):
And if you don’t know, she’s pretty tall.

Katja (09:02):
I am. I’m really unnecessarily tall.

Ryn (09:04):
You are almost tall enough, lady bird.

Katja (09:09):
And the flowering head of the plant was like as big as my head. And then, you know, angelica is a carrot family plant, but it’s a very hefty one. The stalk is like thicker than your thumb. And, you know, so it has those sort of parsley shaped leaves, or like celery. You know, all these plants that are in that same family.

Ryn (09:36):
Yeah, you know, you’ve got with the carrot family you have some features that are going to be more or less consistent in it. You’re going to have relatively thick stems, sometimes with some like red speckling on them. Really thick if you have something like celery, right? But even if you’ve seen like a fennel bulb before, you know. Think about the kind of wrapped portion of it that’s kind of down at the base. And then yeah, the leaves multiply divided, kind of deep incisions and lobes on those. And then you have the flower heads, and they have that umbellate shape, where yes, it does sound like umbrella. That’s good. Keep that in your mind, because it does kind of look like an umbrella shape, like a half dome or a full dome, and actual dome

Katja (10:18):
Really all the way to a circle, pretty much.

Ryn (10:19):
Yeah, on the top of the plant. And it’s cool because with the carrot family, you get these little… Like you have the stem. It goes up to the top of the plant. And then there are these accessory stems that kind of burst out from the top in every direction. And then they explode into these little fireworks of tiny flowers, usually white flowers. And sort of just you can imagine like illustrating or taking a time-lapse video of this plant. And they really would be like shooting straight up, and then bursting out in all directions, and then sparkling from there. And it’s just a very firework sort of situation.

Katja (10:55):
It really is. And angelica, so its leaf structure is such that this is kind of close to the top of the plant. About really the same distance as your arms are from your head. Sort of that same ratio, there are these two branching sets of leaves. And so these plants just, I mean, they were so tall, with these enormous like balls of flowers. And these two arms of leaves just reaching up to the sky in like some kind of…

Ryn (11:34):
Victory pose.

Katja (11:35):
Yeah. Or like plant sun worship kind of… just totally like a gymnast, like the Simone Biles of the plant world. And so that, but here is this place that it’s living in and thriving this way – in a way that I never saw it thrive here in a new England garden – in this place of just utter extremes, right? Like it’s either sun all the time or dark all the time. It’s cold and wet even when it’s summer. The soil is like ground up volcanic rock

Ryn (12:17):
The soil hasn’t been soil very long. You know, like Iceland emerged from the ocean as a result of volcanic activity. And it’s growing by like what, an inch every year or so as the two tectonic plates beneath it retreat from each other in opposite directions. So, there is soil there, but like you say it’s rocky. Even the beach sand is quite large bore gritty. It’s not like the fine stuff that sort of dissolves as you touch it. Yeah. Things are rough around here in Iceland.

Angelica’s Properties

Katja (12:56):
It’s just, and, and like just everything about Iceland actually is that kind of very extreme. You know, like even a lot of aspects of the culture embrace those extremes. And it’s a place where I feel very, very comfortable. I really love Iceland. But really seeing this plant just thrive in a way I had never seen, just larger than life in this environment of extreme, like super extreme. Where you might think like it must be hard for plants to grow here. It’s like always cold. It’s always damp. The soil is weird. The like everything’s… No, it was amazing. And that is what really cued me in on how to work with angelica. Now listen, angelica has some bitterness. It has a bunch of warmth. You can work with it like any warming bitter, both for the digestive tract, for respiratory stuff. It will do all those things, yes. But for me it really comes into play when you find yourself living an extreme lifestyle, whatever that means for you. When you are maybe being over productive without quite enough soil to support you, you know. When you are feeling maybe like the workday is 20 hours long. When you are feeling just any of those extremes. And maybe you’re not even unhappy about it. Maybe you’re perfectly happy about it. Maybe you’re really excited about what you’re working on for 20 hours a day. But you feel maybe those kinds of extremes going on in your life. And maybe you don’t even feel like you need coffee about it. But like you need some support, some kind of deep, grounding, foundational support to just keep yourself going in that sort of environment. And that’s how I work with Angelica. And it is so sustaining.

Ryn (15:29):
Yeah. So in this way, I mean, you’re working with it there partly as a nervine herb, because this is going to show up in nervous system expressions and degrees of sensitivity to the world around you, and that kind of thing.

Katja (15:42):
That one especially I think. You know, being able to go through an extreme day with my head up high and my arms in that victory pose, as opposed to sort of slouching or slumping or whatever. It really is about the nervous fortitude to feel supported and grounded.

Ryn (16:13):
Yeah. And certainly some of that is coming from, like you say, the warming effects of the plant, the bitterness, the activation of digestion and the improvement of digestion. I mean, if you want a great way to have a bad mood, give yourself a bellyache. Not that we need any new ways, but I’m just saying it’s a strong connection. And this is a really nice digestive herbs in those ways, especially for sluggishness, for slowdown, for cold patterns affecting the digestive state.

Katja (16:48):
Okay. Which is also kind of a place where it explains my affinity for it so much, right? Because I do run cold and sluggish. And then when I’m like hey. I’m running my extreme race right now. This is my like equivalent of the Tough Mudder or whatever, but it’s my emotional Tough Mudder or something. And I need to be up and moving, and that’s not necessarily my body’s kind of default position. So, that correlation makes a lot of sense.

Ryn (17:23):
Yeah. But that warmth with angelica, it’s not only in the stomach or only in the digestive organs, right? There is this effect of the herb to increase blood movement, and increase like cellular and organ level activity amounts in the body. So, with angelica you also see that in the pelvic organs, right? Both angelica’s, by the way, are helpful for a sluggish period. We say both. What does that even mean? Because there’s more than two species of angelica on the planet. But we do tend to, as herbalist, tend to divide them into your sort of western angelica and then your Chinese angelica. So, the one we’ve been focusing on here is the western Angelica, Angelica archangelica. But a lot of herbalists like to work with Angelica sinensis or Don Quai. And there’s a couple other related species that I think are more similar to that one, like Angelica dahurica and a few others around there. And for that matter, there’s like a purple angelica that grows in the west and has history there too. So there are others, but all of them, as far as we’ve seen, have a good capacity as a circulatory stimulant emmenagogue. And I’m trying to start a new habit of not using the word emmenagogue without giving it a couple other adjectives.

Katja (18:43):
I love that. I love that.

Ryn (18:45):
I mean, we’ve been thinking about that issue for a long time. And the short version is that too often there’s a conflation – treating two terms as if they were the same – treating emmenagogue and abortifacient as if they were the same.

Katja (19:00):
And then you end up with people saying that ginger is not safe if you’re pregnant. And then I want to bang my head into a wall.

Ryn (19:06):
Right. And our key point of order that we want to introduce to the debate here is that not all emmenagogues exert their effect through the same mechanism. And so, yeah, there are some that will like create more oxytocin activity in the body, and cause some squeezy, uterine contractions. And yeah, okay. We should avoid blue cohosh during early pregnancy. Yes. Right. I agree about that. But most herbs are not blue cohosh. Most herbs are not having that strong uterine contractile stimulant effect. And angelica, honestly both angelicas, I don’t regard as doing that. I look at them more as stimulating blood circulation and blood movement and even heat generation in the pelvic organs and in the uterus itself.

Katja (19:53):
And if you think about this, if you are moving circulatory blood in the pelvic area, moving circulatory blood to the uterus as an organ, you are nourishing the uterus. If you are nourishing the uterus, you can have a healthier menstrual cycle, because your uterus is getting all the materials it needs to do the job well. Well, that’s a really different mechanism of action than something that just says squeeze indiscriminately. It’s just very, very different.

How to Work with Angelica

Ryn (20:27):
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, we’ve frequently had people who are like ah. I have this sluggish period. It takes nine days to complete or something like that. Slow, slow flow. Clotty brown blood, that kind of thing. Work with angelica. And we like this in various ways. If that was the only problem someone was dealing with then, okay. You can maybe take it as tincture. Take it a few times a day in the days when you should be bleeding, or when it just started and you want to kind of speed it up a bit. Okay. But I feel like angelica really is best in a decoction or in a water preparation.

Katja (21:06):
In a water preparation, I have to say that I love angelica every single way in water. Like any way you can think of to mix angelica and water together, I love it. So, you know…

Ryn (21:23):
So eye cups.

Katja (21:26):
Okay. I haven’t ever tried that.

Ryn (21:28):
Wait, wait. Fill a bathtub with… No, actually that could be pretty good. That’d be delightful, actually. If you’ve like gotten all banged up helping someone move for a while. And then you just had a bath and you can pour a gallon or two of some decoction into there and just soak in that. That actually sounds really good.

Katja (21:49):
Okay. So when we’re working with the root, you know, typically we decoct our roots, and angelica is fantastic decocted. But I will say it is also actually quite delicious infused. Now, if you’re going to infuse, not all roots are worth infusing, because you won’t get what you need out of them. But angelica has a very high volatile oil content. So, if you’re going to do an angelica root infusion, what you are really doing is favoring the volatile constituents over the bitter and other heavier constituents. It doesn’t mean that you won’t get any of it.

Ryn (22:26):
Yeah, you’ll get bitter. Don’t worry. I know you were going to be sad, you know, if you didn’t have enough bitter in there., Don’t worry. It’s going to come.

Katja (22:32):
There will be some bitter. But the flavor profile is really different. And listen, it’s delicious enough that I will drink an angelica root infusion all by itself. Just straight. Just how it is. Nothing added. No other plants. It’s delicious. The flavor profile is really different. Now, if you’re doing an infusion, I will do it twice, you know, because you get more.

Ryn (22:57):
Yeah. We’ll just pour more hot water onto those plants. And you’ll know that it’s still good, because you taste it. You’ll say oh yes. This still has strong flavor. Okay. I’m still getting medicinal benefits out of this. This is great.

Katja (23:08):
Yeah. And then we also really love an infusion of the seeds. It is one of my favorite, tastiest, most delicious things.

Ryn (23:19):
Yeah. Angelica seed is really delightful. It looks a lot like fennel seed actually. Actually most of the plants from this family, if you really look at the seeds closely, they have a similar kind of thing. It’s almost like someone has like impressed or like folded the seed capsule. They have these kind of striations that run vertically on them.

Katja (23:42):
A little plumper than a fennel seed, but still very, very similar.

Ryn (23:46):
Yeah. Angelica seed, you know it’s…

Katja (23:48):
I said with my nose in the jar.

Ryn (23:50):
Yeah. I mean, they’re all related, right? So, it has a sort of a carroty kind of a smell to it.

Katja (23:57):
It has some fennel-y aspects.

Ryn (23:59):
Yeah, yeah. A little bit like anise as well. So all of those are there. We first had angelica seed on our honeymoon seven years, four months, and 14 days ago. And it was a revelation, let me tell you. And since then we’ve been fortunate – not too many times, but a few times – to get some angelica seed from friends of ours. Including in Iceland, from the Icelandic herbalist Anna Rosa, and also from some friends of ours in West Virginia who had a beautiful angelica crop, and were extremely kind and generous to send us a big old bag of angelica seed, which we kind of opened up and danced all around. Because yeah, it’s just a really wonderful part of the plant. It’s substantially different from the roots. There’s absolutely crossover. Like they share some of their volatile constituents – like specific chemicals that contribute to their flavor – but it’s not a one-to-one mapping. So they are fairly different from one another, and it’s really great to experiment with. Today I made us a tea blend, and it’s mostly seeds. So, it’s angelica seed, fennel seed, a little anise seed, some cardamom seed, and then a bit of ginger as well.

Katja (25:17):
It’s so good. Oh, the ginger’s real subtle. You went real light on it.

Ryn (25:22):
Yeah. Super light. A quarter spoon. We sort of hoard our angelica seed stash.

Katja (25:30):
That’s exactly the word I was going to say.

Ryn (25:31):
And we basically never drink it unless we’re both having it together.

Katja (25:36):
Yeah. Angelica seed is…

Ryn (25:38):
Which by the way, if you’re in a relationship, I encourage this.

Katja (25:41):
Yeah. Yeah. Like have some things that you only do together.

Ryn (25:45):
It’s really, really nice.

Katja (25:47):
He doesn’t know, but I just acquired an item. It’s not acquired yet. It’s on the way. Thanks Mountain Rose for just such a thing. It’s going to be very exciting. It’s going to be…

Ryn (25:59):
Yeah? All right.

Katja (26:00):
I’m not telling you anything more about it.

Ryn (26:03):
Okay.

Katja (26:04):
Okay, so, but yeah, it is. Have something really special that you only drink with your partner. It’s really fun. And angelica seed is such a good candidate for that, because it is like the firework part of the angelica emotionally. It’s like when you feel like you’ve lost your sparkle and you want it back. You haven’t forgotten that sparkle exists in the world. You just maybe have dulled a little bit, and you want to have that sparkle back. And you’re feeling like life is a little heavy. Then angelica – the seeds – brings that back.

Ryn (26:53):
Yeah. It’s absolutely got a lightening influence to it. It’s a more airy part of the plant. Like the roots have some of that volcanic fire. The seeds have more of this airy type of movement. There is warmth to them, for sure. It’s very much like fennel.

Katja (27:09):
Yeah. Except more delightful than fennel. Yeah. So, you can think about angelica seed when you are feeling like you need to get that sparkle back in your life. Or if you’re only having angelica seed with a special person, then you can be like I’m sharing my sparkle with you. And that’s also wonderful. Yes. And then also I just want to make a note about the other parts of angelica. They’re food. And it is really worth growing angelica so that you can candy the stalks. Because candied angelica stalk is one of the best things, pretty much on the planet. It’s a kind of delicious I didn’t even know existed.

Ryn (28:02):
Yeah. It’s really great. You know, you would just have the stalk, and you would just slice it horizontally.

Katja (28:10):
Yeah, so that you end up with like, I don’t know…

Ryn (28:12):
Cross-sections.

Katja (28:15):
Yeah. That are like maybe an inch long. That would do it.

Ryn (28:18):
Yeah. And then you can just take those pieces and soak them in a jar of honey. And just like we do with ginger or other things, and let them hang out in there for a while. And then when you fish them out later, they will…

Katja (28:31):
So good.

Ryn (28:32):
Yeah, they’ll be honey soaked and tasty and soft and chewy.

Katja (28:36):
Well, yeah, they still do have like some aspect of crunch to them, but it isn’t the same. It’s like, yeah. Now you can buy candied angelica in Europe. And that’s typically done with sugar. But it is pretty fantastic done with honey, really so delicious. And the leaves you can just eat like you would celery, you know, any of that stuff. So good.

Ryn (29:02):
Yeah. Angelica. I don’t know. Anything else you want to say today?

Katja (29:07):
I just, oh, angelica.

Tarragon:Artemisia dracunculus & Food

Ryn (29:09):
Okay. All right. Let’s go ahead and move on then, and let’s talk about tarragon. So this is an artemisia species. We’re going to be having more artemisia species next week, because we have in our apothecary here Artemisia dracunculus. We have Artemisia absinthium. And we have Artemisia vulgaris. So, we’re going to have absinthium and vulgaris next time. That’s wormwood and mugwort. But this time we’re going to talk about tarragon for you. Yeah. And you know, this one is a little more similar to angelica than it is, well, maybe to wormwood I suppose. Let me say it this way. When I think about the Artemisias, these three of them, I think of tarragon as the aromatic one. I think of wormwood as the bitter one. And I think of mugwort as somewhere in between.

Katja (30:01):
Yeah. Tarragon is like the mint of the Artemesia family. You know, except you’re right. It does share a lot of the flavor profile with angelica. It does.

Ryn (30:14):
Yeah, it has a different… I mean all of the Artemesias are aromatic, right? So, wormwood has aromatics. You can burn it and make smoke, or you can have incense, or you can smoke it and get a lot that way. Wormwood, a little less so, but there’s still some. If you have a leaf and you crush it, you’ll get some scent off of it. But with tarragon, there’s a lot more of that action. And it’s also differently composed. It has a bit of warmth to it, you know? It’s not one of these kind of like cold aromatics that have like sort of aromatic bitter almost. And that I find especially with wormwood and with mugwort too. But yeah, tarragon is warm

Katja (30:56):
Yeah. It definitely is indisputably warm. And that’s one of the things that I like about it so much. I really like tarragon in cooking, but I only put it in things that aren’t cooked. I rarely put it in anything that is actually cooked. One of my favorite places is in cranberry relish. So, that’s like a lot of sour flavors. And, you know, sourness has that coolness with it. And then I like to put in finely chopped tarragon in tarragon infused honey. And it’s so good. Tarragon for me is like ginger in the sushi. It’s that thing that warms up the otherwise cool. I like tarragon in a salad. Listen, it’s not bad in cooked foods. Go ahead. I’m not saying that I don’t like it. Just that I really do like it in cold things.

Ryn (32:04):
Yeah, yeah. I stuck my nose in the tarragon, and now my nose is running a little bit.

Katja (32:12):
He took a very deep breath and then…

Ryn (32:16):
Yeah, really great stuff.

Katja (32:18):
It is. It’s so delicious. It is kind of an occupational hazard though. Because if you open up a jar, and you’re like oh, I want to get a good smell of this. And you open it up, and you give it a little shake. Because I don’t know, you just do that. And then you take a big smell, but like you’ve shaken it. So, a bunch of the little particulates are now floating in the air.

Ryn (32:38):
Get a little herb powder in your nose? Yeah. You get a little echo of the habit that doesn’t seem to be around anymore, but of people taking snuff, right? Where they would take various little different kinds of herbal powder, and intentionally snort them, and get them stuck in their nose.

Katja (32:54):
I’m kind of glad that is out of fashion, because it doesn’t appeal to me.

Ryn (33:00):
Yeah. Well, there are plenty of methods of medicine making that you don’t really get into. Haven’t gotten into the Ayurvedic nasya oils where you pour them up your nose, and all that kind of fun stuff.

Katja (33:14):
No, my nose is for air, and I like to put it in my nose. Well, anyway…

Ryn (33:20):
I don’t want to knock it until I try it I guess, but I’m also not going to line up.

Katja (33:24):
I’m glad that it exists, because not everybody feels the same way about their nose that I do. So I’m glad that there’s a lot of different ways to get herbs into you, so that everybody can have the way that appeals most to them. But for me, tarragon, honestly, I mean, it’s good in tea. It’s absolutely good in tea.

Ryn (33:42):
You did a month where you had tarragon tea basically every day.

Tarragon’s Properties

Katja (33:45):
Yes. And I still like it better mixed with cranberries. I do. And maybe that’s because I like it mixed with cranberry so much, that I could eat it every single day. And basically from now until next spring, I will eat it every single day. But no, but it is good in tea. Especially if it’s winter, you’ve been drinking a lot of respiratory stuff. You’ve been putting a bunch of mints in there to make the respiratory stuff tastes good. And you’re getting really tired of those minty mints. And you’re like, I’ve got to switch this up. I want to have something different. Man, it’s time for tarragon. It really is. It’s lovely. And the thing is that we think about oh, I’ll just put some peppermint in to make it taste good, or I’ll just put some tulsi in to make it taste good. When we are thinking I’ll just put whatever in to make it taste good, usually the mints come to mind. But I think you should put tarragon in that category. Because if you put it in, you will make things taste good. And it has very similar properties. It’s got that warming action. It’s got that blood circulatory stimulating action. It’s going to warm up the respiratory tract. Again, all those basic warming actions. It does have some bitter components, but you hardly taste them. They’re very in the background.

Ryn (35:20):
Yeah. So, if there was one of these kinds of digestive and respiratory like combination problems this could be very helpful. And maybe that’s somebody who just has some kind of sluggish digestion. And that’s leading to some excess mucus production over in the lungs as your body is trying to find alternate pathways of elimination for some waste products or something like that.

Katja (35:43):
Or, you know, if there’s sluggishness in the digestive tract, and then you’re going to have a kind of a heavy meal. And you’re thinking oh boy, this is going to do me in. Then that’s a nice place for the tarragon. You could blend it with fennel and sage and a little bit of ginger. I wouldn’t go heavy on the ginger though, because the other flavors will be so nice.

Ryn (36:04):
Yeah. That’s a good locus for it, as one of those herbs that will help with digestion of fats in particular. So, if that’s hard for somebody. Maybe you’re transitioning to a diet that includes more fat. Or maybe you’ve gotten over some phobia of saturated fat, and you’re increasing that in your diet, and you’re helping your body get used to it. Yeah. Tarragon could be very helpful, both in the cooking, and then also just as something to drink along with the meal.

Katja (36:33):
I am getting really hungry. I am like oh, all these things sound really delicious. And so that is also a way to think about these plants. You know, a nice Artemesia, fennel, and sage blend would be really excellent here if you are, for whatever reason, having trouble eating. Maybe you got real busy and kind of didn’t eat a lot. And now you’re kind of in the habit of not eating a lot. But you know that’s maybe not the best thing for your body. Or if you’ve been stressed out, and it’s hard for you to eat when you’re stressed out. Then you can take bitters, and bitters ultimately will make you hungry. But that might not be super delightful, and you might prefer a nice tea. These kinds of flavors are also strongly stimulating the digestive system. And with a blend like that, I’m just now completely obsessed with tarragon and fennel and sage. But if you think about what’s going on with that blend, you’ve got the aromatic qualities, the warming qualities. You’ve got the movement, like not just blood movement, but also motility in the GI tract specifically kind of movement. And then there’s a little bit of bitter property from the sage, a little bit from the tarragon. Not much. Not so much that you’re going to be like this isn’t delicious. No, it’s going to be delicious. And that could also be… Especially if you’re experiencing a lot of stress and that’s what’s causing you to not want to eat. It’s maybe not enough to just take a bitter and be like okay. Well, now I’m salivating. Your emotional side is still not there. But this could really warm up the digestive tract to get it ready for food, get you physically ready to eat, but also bring your emotional side along with you.

Ryn (38:40):
Yeah. Right. And again, seeing that kind of touchpoint between digestive health, digestive activity, and then also the state of your nervous system. If you end up in a bad mood that might generate a belly ache or the other way around. This road runs in both directions. And I feel like tarragon is helping kind of on both sides of it. Yeah.

Katja (39:06):
Thanks tarragon.

Ryn (39:08):
Yeah. Pretty nice, huh?

Katja (39:10):
These are two just… It’s nice that they came up together today, because I’m also thinking hmm. Tarragon and angelica would be a nice team when we finish this one. That would be good.

Ryn (39:24):
Yeah. That would be angels and dragons.

Katja (39:29):
Yes.

Ryn (39:32):
Yeah. All right.

Katja (39:34):
There’s nothing more to say. Angels and dragons. Yes.

Ryn (39:38):
Cool. So we know our plans. And we hope that this little introduction to these two was intriguing for you. And if these are plants you haven’t worked with before in this way, then gave you some inspiration to give that a try. Definitely give them a taste, and see what you think. So, we’re going to be back next time with some more Holistic Herbalism podcast for you. Until then take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Drink some tea.

Katja (40:02):
Do drink some tea.

Ryn (40:03):
Put some angels and dragons in it, and we’ll see you soon.

Katja (40:08):
Buh-Bye