A slow, grounding infusion where spikenard's dark forest-floor resin meets the sweet licorice lift of star anise. It settles the nervous system and coaxes the body toward sleep, an earthy quiet you can taste.
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2 compounds carry this recipe. Here is what each one does and, where we have it, what it actually looks like.
The signature sesquiterpene of spikenard root; it carries the deep, resinous forest-floor character and quiets the nervous system to draw the body toward sleep.
The bright aromatic heart of star anise; it lends a sweet, warming licorice lift that softens spikenard's woody depth and settles the stomach into calm.
This recipe is part of a set: follow the thread through the blends it uses and what it's served with.
Pliny priced Indian nard at a hundred denarii a pound. Two thousand years later the same Himalayan rhizome is assessed as Critically Endangered, and its assessors report the Indian wild population down by more than eighty per cent in a decade.
Star anise was once the world's main industrial source of shikimic acid, the starting material for Tamiflu. It does not follow that star anise treats flu, and there is a poisonous look-alike worth knowing about.
