Liquorice root
The root of a Mediterranean and western Asian legume, intensely sweet and used as much to sweeten other botanicals as on its own. The sweetness is not sugar and does not behave like it — far more intense by weight, slower to arrive, and carrying a distinct anise character alongside it.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Glycyrrhiza glabra
- Family
- Fabaceae
- Part used
- Root
- Origin
- From the Mediterranean through western and central Asia to northwestern China
- Drunk in
- Turkey, Iran, Egypt, China, Spain
Character
Very sweet with a distinct anise character and an earthy base. A small quantity sweetens a whole blend, which is largely how it is used.
Notes: anise, sweet root, earth
History
Recorded in Egyptian, Assyrian and Chinese sources, and traded widely from antiquity. Its industrial use in confectionery and in tobacco flavouring long exceeded its use as a drink, and still does.
How it is drunk
Blended into herbal mixtures across the Middle East and Europe, and used in Chinese formulations as a harmonising component. In Egypt erk sous is sold from street carts as a cold drink.
Production
Roots are lifted after three or four years, washed, and dried whole or shredded. Peeled and unpeeled material are graded separately and the peeled is considerably milder.
Preparation
Decoction · Infusion
Boiling and decoction
1–3 g/100 ml · 98–100 °C · 10 min
What gets confused
Confectionery liquorice is flavoured with anise oil as often as with the root, so the sweet most people know may contain none of this plant.
Related botanicals
- Stevia — The two sweet botanicals, and both carry a distinctive tail that ordinary sugar does not.
- Astragalus — Gently sweet roots used as background notes in soups and blends rather than as drinks in their own right.
- Sarsaparilla — Sweet-rooted vines behind the temperance soft drinks of the nineteenth century, both bitter before sugar is added.
- Fenugreek — Both smell far sweeter than they taste, and both are used in mixtures where their aroma does the work.
- Sarsaparilla — Both are sold as the root behind root beer and sarsaparilla drinks, and those drinks have been made from either, from other Smilax species, and from neither.
Comparisons
- Stevia vs liquorice root — The two sweet botanicals, and both carry a distinctive tail that ordinary sugar does not. One is a Paraguayan leaf and the other a Eurasian root, and they sweeten very differently.
- Sarsaparilla vs liquorice root — Two sweet-rooted plants behind the temperance soft drinks of the nineteenth century, and both are bitter before sugar is added. One tastes of root beer and the other of aniseed.
- Marshmallow root vs liquorice root — Two roots that both give a confection its name and neither of which is in the modern version. One contributes texture and no flavour; the other contributes flavour and dominates.
- Fenugreek vs liquorice root — Two materials that smell far sweeter than they taste. Fenugreek’s maple aroma comes from the same compound that dominates maple syrup, and neither delivers the sweetness the nose promises.
- Liquorice root vs fennel — Two anise-adjacent materials constantly blended together and often assumed to be the same flavour. One is sweet and one is not.
- Astragalus and liquorice root — Two sweet East Asian roots that appear in the same blends and taste nothing alike. Both are much more often bought for reasons this catalogue does not cover.
Guides
Evidence for this page
The botanical name, family and distribution above are checked against an external authority. Glycyrrhiza glabra 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.
Safety information is held, not absent. TeaHQ has a safety record for Liquorice root covering tolerability, interactions and pregnancy. It is unpublished, because publishing a safety statement requires an external source of a standard TeaHQ does not yet hold and a named human to take accountability for it. Nothing on this page should be read as saying this plant is safe or unsafe. How TeaHQ handles this.