Herbal Teas for Mood

When Bombay's Victoria Gardens were laid out, the story goes, the workmen could not stand the mosquitoes; on the advice of the Hindu managers the boundary was planted with holy basil, and the mosquitoes went. The telling is usually traced to a letter written to The Times in 1903. Indian and Nepali gardens grow three kinds of the plant: Ram tulsi, broad-leaved and a little sweet; Krishna or Shyama tulsi, purple-tinged; and Vana tulsi, the wild one.

Lavender's newest country is Japan. Furano, in the middle of Hokkaido, grew it for oil from about 1952; in the 1970s synthetic compounds and cheap imports took the price apart and the fields came out. One that stayed appeared in a 1976 calendar of photographs put out by Japanese National Railways, and the visitors have come ever since. A London soap house had done something like it with a painting: it took Francis Wheatley's flower sellers, out of his Cries of London, for its label, and swapped the primroses in the girl's basket for lavender.

Passionflower's American name is maypop. One explanation is the hollow yellow fruit, which pops loudly when it is trodden on; the other is that the roots lie dormant all winter and the plant pops out of the ground in May. Tennessee made it the state wildflower.

Tulsi Multi puts the leaf with papaya, apple, rosehip and orange peel, and Pomegranate Tulsi, Organic carries it with orange peel, hibiscus, elderberries and currants. Lavender, Organic is the flower dried for the cup rather than the drawer, Passionflower, Organic is the vine, and Lemon Balm, Organic is the bright lemon one beside them.