Greek Mountain Tea

Sideritis is the plant behind tsai tou vounou, the mountain tea drunk across Greece through the winter. It grows wild on high, rocky slopes rather than being farmed at scale, and it is still gathered by hand, mostly by people from mountain villages who have picked the same hillsides for generations. Epirus and Crete are the two areas most often named on a packet.

The whole dried stem is used, leaves and small yellow flowers together, broken up and infused in water just off the boil rather than measured out like a spoon of leaf tea, then sweetened with thyme honey and often given a strip of lemon peel. Its name comes from sideros, iron, and it has been drunk for colds and chest complaints for as long as anyone has written it down.

It is sold as long dried stems tied into a bundle rather than chopped or bagged, and that is the form worth buying, since the flowers hold most of the aroma and shed once the stems are broken up. Oversteeping turns it bitter, so five to eight minutes is enough. It is a tisane rather than a tea and contains no caffeine at all, which is why it is drunk in the evening.