We can say with complete confidence that our herbs are handcrafted. Yes, we do have many specially designed machines to help us along the way from growing, to planting and weeding, to harvesting, drying and packaging. But we still use our hands to work with the herbs at every step along the way.

In the spring we start many of our herbs in a small, wood-heated greenhouse. The rest are either seeded directly into the garden or they come back as perennials. Through the summer we do our best to keep the weeds under control. June is the most critical time for this as any weeds that are missed will take off in July and become super weeds by the beginning of August.

Harvest of the herbs begins as early as mid-June with some of the perennial corps and the chamomile flowers. Harvesting continues until fall. We finish the season with harvesting our roots (dandelion, marshmallow and comfrey) in late fall when all of the energy has gone from the plant into the roots.

We do everything possible to be gentle when handling the herbs. Every time that a leaf is crushed, volatile oils are released, which we want to trap in the tea leaves, so that we have the most potent tea possible.

The herbs are air-dried as quickly as possible without exposing them to excessive temperatures that might evaporate the essential oils. Maintaining colour and fragrance as close to the fresh plant as possible is our measure for a quality dried tea or culinary herb. If a batch or a part of a batch does not dry green enough, that part is discarded.

After drying, we do the minimum amount of processing to remove the stems and get the herbs into a consistency so that they can be packaged in our retail boxes.

All of our retail packages are assembled, filled and sealed by hand.

So, yes, we are proud to offer the best handcrafted loose herbal teas and culinary herbs!