A ha!


A tisane. Tisane. I'm wild about the idea, of course, of fresh herbs from back yards (lemon verbena or mint or... ) used to make quick herbal teas, muddled a bit and served hot, cold, in between.

For this task though I wanted stronger! Something with purpose, real strength, you know? I wanted something simple, reduced to an even more essential version of itself. Life is too chaotic to make a tincture at this moment, but a real strrrong tisane sounded like it'd do for now.

I am technically a city dweller, though admittedly rather transient in my ways. I live lakeside in Oakland, prefer San Francisco, and also have history in Marin (San Rafael). The latter is ! technically! a city. I exclaim, 'cause I really wanted to gather and use wild oat-tops (Avena fatua). It's easily found around where I grew up (Marin. I was worried that I'd need to hunt in SF, though I will in the future). The plant, if you let it, grows so big and wild that you can sit nearly engulfed by it. I so I gathered a bit after a hike, lay around in it, kept it with intent to put it to use in this task.



As for herbalism, I am skeptical but also... a little romantic. So even if I don't believe for a second that one cup of tea will make a big difference, It think it's worth it if only for the ritual of preparation. To gather, to sort and clean, dry and wait, boil and reduce, smell and pour and taste and feel.

There are a lot of health claims around oats/oat tops/milky oat tops (genital herpes be gone!!), but support for that's alllll anecdotal, baby. Not that I trust the FDA to decide. Yknow, a few hundred million thrown into researching plants is not much more convincing than a few hundred years of anecdotal evidence. ANYWAY, I half wanted to try it for stress relief, and half cause I looove oats, oatmeal, anything related. Mmhmm.

I made a greatly reduced tea by adding the oat tops to boiling water and reducing the whole thing to a dark brown and silky-thick tea. It was beautiful.