Hollyhock
The dried flower of a tall garden mallow, infused in Iran and Turkey and sold under names that overlap almost completely with two other plants. The dark-flowered forms give a blue-black cup that turns pink the moment lemon goes in, and colour rather than flavour is why it is bought.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Alcea rosea
- Family
- Malvaceae
- Part used
- Flower
- Origin
- Long cultivated and of uncertain wild origin; conventionally referred to south-west and central Asia and naturalised almost everywhere it is grown
- Drunk in
- Iran, Turkey, Levant
Character
Very mild and faintly sweet, with the soft slippery body all the mallows share. What it contributes to a cup is colour and texture rather than flavour, and it is almost always blended.
Notes: dried flower, faint honey
History
An ornamental that moved west along trade routes early enough that the English name is medieval, and one of the plants whose garden career and drinking career ran in parallel without meeting. The near-black cultivars grown for the infusion trade are selections made for pigment, in the same way that the double-flowered chamomile is a selection made for appearance.
How it is drunk
In Iran gol-e khatmi is a standard item of the attari and is infused domestically, usually blended with other flowers rather than alone. In Turkey hatmi çiçeği is sold dried by herbalists and market traders. In both places it sits in the same part of the shelf as marshmallow and common mallow, which is exactly where the confusion begins.
Production
Flowers are picked fully open and dried flat and fast in the dark; the dark purple-black cultivars are the ones picked for the trade because pigment is the graded property. Light during drying bleaches them and the material becomes worthless for its only real purpose.
Preparation
Infusion · Cold infusion
Herbal infusion (tisane)
1–2 g/100 ml · 85–90 °C · 5 min
Category-typical practice rather than a measurement for this specific botanical. Most infusions are far more tolerant of a long steep than tea is.
What gets confused
Three plants are sold as “mallow” and packets frequently do not say which: marshmallow (Althaea officinalis), whose root is the traded part; common or blue mallow (Malva sylvestris), whose flower gives the blue infusion; and hollyhock (Alcea rosea), this plant. All three are Malvaceae, all three are mucilaginous, and TeaHQ holds separate records for all three.
Common mistakes
- Boiling water poured straight on, which dulls the blue before the drink reaches the table.
Evidence for this page
This page is TeaHQ synthesis throughout. No external source stands behind any statement on it, including the botanical name. 132 of the 204 botanicals have had their names and distribution checked against a taxonomic authority and this is not one of them.
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 Hollyhock 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.