German chamomile
Matricaria chamomilla
Tiny daisies with a hollow yellow heart and a scent of apple, Europe's best-loved infusion flower since antiquity.
Portrait
German chamomile is a modest plant of fields, waste ground and roadsides, anywhere the soil has been turned. Its leaves are finely cut, almost thread-like, and its flowers are little daisies with a domed yellow centre. The trick to recognizing it: slice that centre in half and it is hollow. Its cousin, Roman chamomile, has a solid centre and a different smell. Crushed, true chamomile smells of green apple; the Greeks called it chamaimelon, the ground apple.
A flower for all time
The Egyptians dedicated it to the sun. In the Middle Ages it was strewn on house floors to perfume rooms underfoot. It is in Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit, in monastery gardens, in the teacups of every grandmother in Europe. It is a childhood flower.
Harvest
The flowers are picked in the morning, just after opening, by running a comb through the stems. They wilt quickly and must dry without delay, in shade, on screens. The shop's chamomile is organic, from Egypt and Croatia, topped up in summer by a few rows from Étienne's garden.
In the workshop
Steeped, it gives a golden liquid tasting of apple, honey and hay, with a slight bitterness if left too long. Macerated in oil it takes on a straw-yellow tint and a soft scent that goes into some of the shop's balms.
Our products are artisanal plant-based preparations. They are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.