Ingredients · Spice

Star Anise

Illicium verum · Schisandraceae

Star Anise
An eight-pointed star, dried, from a tree of the hills of south China and northern Vietnam. It tastes of licorice because it is rich in anethole — the same compound that makes anise seed and fennel taste the way they do, though the three plants are unrelated. Star anise is the most forceful of them, and the standing advice is to start with less than you think: one star will flavour a whole pot of broth. Seven products carry it.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partFruit
KindSpice
CaffeineCaffeine-free
Where it is fromChina, Vietnam
TasteLicorice warmth, sweet and intense — the strongest of the anethole spices

How to use it

One or two whole stars into a broth, a braise or a mulling pot, and fished out. It is the backbone of pho, of Chinese red-braised pork, and one of the five in Chinese five-spice. Ground, a very small amount goes into biryani and masala chai. It stands up to long cooking better than almost any other spice, which is why it belongs in broth.

With food

Pork and beef, especially braised. Duck. Orange. Beef broth and rice noodles. Pear and plum. Red wine. Dark chocolate. Sweet potato.

With spices

Fennel, cinnamon, cloves and Szechuan pepper — Chinese five-spice. Ginger and cardamom for chai. Orange peel. Black pepper. Coriander seed.

With tea

Masala chai. Assam and other strong black teas. Pu-erh. Rooibos for a caffeine-free spiced cup.

Its story

Where it comes from

Native to south China and northeast Vietnam — Guangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, Guizhou and Yunnan, and northern Indo-China, where it has been used for over three thousand years. China and Vietnam dominate the trade. The trees first flower at around six years and are harvested commercially from seven to ten years old, for decades after. Our lots name no origin.

What happened

The first star anise in Europe is credited to Thomas Cavendish, the English privateer who sailed from Plymouth in 1586, took the Manila galleon Santa Ana off Cabo San Lucas in November 1587, raided the Spanish Philippines in early 1588, and sailed home into Plymouth that September with silks, musk and spices — what has been called the biggest treasure haul that ever fell into English hands. Told plainly: it arrived as plunder from a Spanish treasure ship. The old European name, badian, may come from the Chinese bajiao, eight horns, and the Latin Illicium means to entice. Its strangest modern chapter is chemical: star anise was the major source of shikimic acid, the starting point for manufacturing the drug oseltamivir, and until 2012 one pharmaceutical company used about 90 per cent of the world's annual crop. A fermentation route found in 2005 had become standard by 2018, and the spice went back to being a spice.

On the shelf with it

Sold on its own, and in these blends.

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