Immortelle
A silver-leaved Mediterranean shrub whose tight yellow flower clusters keep their shape and colour indefinitely once dried — the property the name records. Its commercial weight is in perfumery, and drinking it is a local practice of Dalmatia, Corsica and parts of Italy rather than a traded category.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Helichrysum italicum
- Family
- Asteraceae
- Part used
- Flower, Aerial parts
- Origin
- Coasts and islands of the Mediterranean — Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, the Dalmatian coast and the Balkan littoral
- Drunk in
- Dalmatia, Corsica, Sardinia, Croatia
Character
Strongly aromatic, resinous and distinctly bitter, with the warm savoury note that gives the plant its garden name. A small quantity and a short steep; it dominates anything it is blended with.
Notes: curry leaf, resin, honey, hay
History
The modern industry is a distillation industry: Corsican and Croatian growers supply immortelle absolute and essential oil to perfumery, and the Dalmatian smilje cooperatives that planted it in the 2000s planted it for oil. Infusing the flower is a domestic use of a crop grown for scent, which is the same relationship lavender has with Provence.
How it is drunk
In Dalmatia and on the Croatian islands smilje is cut, hung in bunches and infused at home, alone or with sage and rosemary from the same hillside. Corsican and Sardinian households do much the same. It is not a supermarket tisane anywhere, and outside those coasts it is met as an ingredient in a cosmetic rather than a cup.
Production
Cut in full flower and dried in bundles in shade. Flower heads that stay a hard bright yellow are correctly dried; the dull ochre material is old. The stems are aromatic too and are usually left on, which makes the packet bulky and the dose hard to judge by eye.
Preparation
Infusion
Herbal infusion (tisane)
1–2 g/100 ml · 90–95 °C · 4 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
“Curry plant” is a garden name for the smell and has no connection to curry leaf (Murraya koenigii) or to curry powder — TeaHQ holds curry leaf as a separate record and the two are not substitutes. Several Helichrysum species trade as immortelle: H. italicum in the western Mediterranean, H. arenarium in central and eastern Europe, and various South African species in the ornamental trade.
Common mistakes
- Dosing it like chamomile. It is closer to rosemary in strength than to a soft flower.
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 Immortelle 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.