Chamomile Lavender Tea

A blend of chamomile flower heads and culinary lavender buds. The chamomile brings apple and honey, the lavender a perfumed top note, and a little goes a long way. Steeped in a covered mug at 96°C for five to six minutes.

Origin & Story

Lavender is the loud half of this pairing. Chamomile is honey and apple and straw. Lavender is a perfume. Put in too much and the cup turns soapy, which is why tea makers use it by the pinch.

The cause is chemistry. Lavender's aroma comes from compounds such as linalool and linalyl acetate, which taste pleasantly floral in small amounts and soapy and perfume-like in large ones. The advice from lavender growers is to use no more than half to one teaspoon of culinary lavender per cup and, if you want it stronger, to add a few more buds rather than steeping longer, since time pulls out the sharp notes before the sweet ones.

Use lavender sold for eating, culinary Lavandula angustifolia, and check that the package says so. The plant belongs to the Mediterranean, and its story in France is long: the Romans are said to have scented their baths with it, monks grew it in abbeys such as Senanque from the twelfth century, and in the nineteenth century the perfume trade of Grasse turned the lavender fields of Provence into an industry.

A good starting ratio is about a tablespoon of chamomile to three-quarters of a teaspoon of lavender per cup, and lighter still if the lavender dominates.

Steep 3 g of the blend in 240 ml of water at 96°C for five to six minutes in a covered mug.

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