Journal

Vanilla Is an Orchid, and It Grows Wild in the Amazon

Vanilla is the cured fruit of a climbing orchid, hand-pollinated one flower at a time. It is native to the American tropics, and Peru's Amazon grows its own.

The Busiest Ingredient in the Tea Aisle Doesn't Have a Name

Two words near the bottom of the box do an enormous amount of work. What "natural flavors" legally covers, why flavored tea leans on it, and how to read a tea panel in about ten seconds.

What Is Butterfly Pea Flower? The Blue Petal in a Berry-Red Cup

Butterfly pea flower is one of seven ingredients in Gather: mild on the tongue, famous to the eye. Where the flower comes from, and why the cup it lives in pours deep berry red.

What Is Camu Camu? The Amazon Fruit Too Sour to Eat

Fresh camu camu is almost too sour to eat, which is why the Peruvian Amazon juices, pulps, and blends it. Where the flooded-forest fruit comes from, and what it does in Gather.

What Is Muña? The Wild Mint of the Andes

Muña: the wild Andean mint behind the highlands' after-meal cup, and why it is not the black mint in Rooted.

Most evening tea isn't tea.

Sleepytime, Bedtime, Calm: the classic blends on the American bedtime shelf are tisanes, no tea leaf in the formula. Dusk is actual tea, and the black leaf is there for structure.

The After-Meal Tea America Never Imported

In Chile and Peru, lunch closes with a cup of boldo, a slow-growing, wild-harvested tree leaf. The plant, the after-lunch cup it makes, and why it anchors Rooted.

Peruvian Cardamom: The Cloud-Forest Spice in Daybreak

Nearly all the world's cardamom comes from India or Guatemala. Daybreak's grows in Peru's central cloud forest, under the coffee canopy of Villa Rica.