Angelica root
A tall northern European umbellifer whose root and stem are both used, with a musky, earthy aroma that turns up in gin and in Nordic liqueurs. In Iceland and northern Norway it was a cultivated vegetable long before it was a flavouring.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Angelica archangelica
- Family
- Apiaceae
- Part used
- Root
- Origin
- Northern, middle and eastern Europe including Iceland, and the Caucasus and western Siberia; Greenland, where the plant has the deepest documented household use of anywhere, is outside the recorded native range
- Drunk in
- Iceland, Norway, France, Poland
Character
Musky and earthy with a celery-like edge and firm bitterness, and a resinous depth that explains its place in gin. Assertive enough that it is nearly always blended.
Notes: musk, celery, juniper
History
One of very few plants domesticated in Scandinavia rather than introduced to it, and protected by law in medieval Iceland and Norway — the Gulating law code contains provisions on angelica gardens. Its use in gin botanicals and in Chartreuse is a much later European development.
How it is drunk
Candied stems are a Nordic and French confectionery tradition, the root flavours aquavit, gin and monastic liqueurs, and the root is infused in central Europe. In Iceland and the Faroes the plant is still gathered and eaten.
Production
Roots are lifted in autumn of the first year, split and dried slowly, since they are thick and rot if dried too fast. They darken with age and lose aroma noticeably after a year.
Preparation
Decoction
Boiling and decoction
1–3 g/100 ml · 98–100 °C · 20 min
What gets confused
Chinese dang gui is Angelica sinensis, a different species with a different tradition, and the two are both sold simply as 'angelica'. The Apiaceae family also contains dangerously similar-looking wild plants, so gathered material is a matter for someone who knows the family.
Common mistakes
- Buying old stock. Angelica root loses its aroma faster than most roots and a two-year-old packet is nearly inert.
Related botanicals
- Juniper berry — The two resinous northern botanicals behind gin and aquavit, both musky and firmly bitter.
Comparisons
- Angelica vs juniper — The two resinous northern botanicals behind gin and aquavit. Both are musky and firmly bitter, and neither is a berry despite what one of them is universally called.
- Angelica root and fennel seed — Two carrot-family aromatics that both read as sweet and anise-like, and are met in very different places — one mostly in distilling, the other in kitchens across half the world.
Evidence for this page
The botanical name, family and distribution above are checked against an external authority. Angelica archangelica L. — GRIN-Global Taxonomy record— retrieved and read, not countersigned by a named human. That source covers naming and distribution only. Everything else on this page — history, culture, production, flavour, preparation and buying advice — is TeaHQ’s own synthesis with no external source behind it.
Brewing parameters here are typical practice for the category rather than measurements of this plant, and each set says so.
This page makes no safety claim. It describes what Angelica root is, where it comes from and how it is prepared — not what it does to a person. The absence of a safety note here is not a statement that the plant is safe. How TeaHQ handles this.