Dried Botanicals and Herbal Teas Are Not the Same Thing

Two pouches of dried flowers can look very similar on a shop shelf. That doesn't mean they're both sold for the same purpose. This is worth explaining properly, because a photograph on its own won't tell you what somebody should do with the contents.

At Mother Earth we have a Wellness Teas collection and a separate Blue Lotus botanical range. They are deliberately described differently.

Start with what the product is actually sold for

Chamomile tea and hibiscus flowers are examples of products in our tea range, with the preparation information given on their respective listings. A dried botanical intended for display or personal ritual is a different product category.

Our Blue Lotus and White Lotus dried flowers are supplied for personal botanical and ritual use, not as foods, teas or food supplements. The fact that they're dried plants does not change that description.

What about botanical tinctures?

A bottle is not automatically something to swallow because the word ‘tincture’ appears on it. Ingredients, purpose, labelling and permitted use matter. Our Blue Lotus Botanical Tincture is a separate preparation supplied for botanical use and is not intended for ingestion.

Different suppliers may use similar words for different products. Don't take a method you've seen online and apply it to a bottle or pouch without checking what that particular item is.

Why we keep the descriptions specific

Clear labels protect customers from guesswork. They also make the shop easier to use. Somebody looking for a herbal tea should be able to browse the appropriate tea products. Somebody interested in botanical rituals should be able to find the dried flower formats without being given confusing preparation instructions.

For an explanation of the physical formats, see Blue Lotus Flowers, Petals or Finely Chopped?. And if you already have a pouch of dried lotus, our botanical storage guide explains how to look after it.

Three things worth checking on any listing

• The exact product name and intended use.
• The current ingredient and handling information.
• Whether the preparation directions apply to that format, not something else with a similar name.

We don't need to dress this up as a mystery. It's ordinary, useful product information, and customers should be able to understand it at a glance.

Explore Botanical Flowers & Rituals for the non-food botanical side, or Wellness Teas when you're actually looking for a drink.