Herbal Tea for Stress & Anxiety Relief

Provins, south-east of Paris. The rose grown there is Rosa gallica officinalis, the apothecaries' rose, and the town sold its dried petals and its rose conserves at the great fairs of Champagne and Brie, from where they went across France and as far as the East. Legend has it the rose came home with Thibaut of Champagne, a crusader who was also a poet, and that the apothecaries planted it outside their doors as a shop sign.

In 1258 a friend of Saadi of Shiraz gathered roses in his coat to carry home. Saadi told him they would be gone inside a week, and wrote the Gulistan instead — a rose garden of stories that would not wilt. A cup of dried petals is the same trick: June, kept.

The other flowers here came out of garden work. Elizabethan herb gardens had lawns and seats planted with Roman chamomile, the cushion-soft cousin of the flower in the tin, put there to be sat on, and Shakespeare gave Falstaff the line that the more camomile is trodden on, the faster it grows. Lavender came through Old French lavandre; the usual story ties it to lavare, to wash, for the linen and the bath water, and an identical Middle English word meant laundress.

Rose Petals, Organic is the dried gallica. Chamomile, Organic and Lavender, Organic are the two flowers in the drawing, with Lemon Balm, Organic beside them. Serenity Now! puts rooibos under chamomile, passionflower, lemon verbena and anise, and Ayurvedic Nirvana sets linden flowers with fennel, cardamom and black pepper.