Rosemary
A resinous Mediterranean shrub, infused domestically around the Mediterranean and used far more widely in cooking. Reclassified into the Salvia genus in 2017 after genetic work, having spent two centuries as Rosmarinus officinalis.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Salvia rosmarinus
- Family
- Lamiaceae
- Part used
- Leaf
- Origin
- The Mediterranean basin
- Drunk in
- Italy, Greece, Morocco, Spain
Character
Piney and resinous with real bitterness and a cooling camphor edge that arrives late. Assertive enough that most traditions blend it rather than drinking it alone, and a long steep pushes it from aromatic to medicinal quickly.
Notes: pine, resin, camphor
History
Grown around the Mediterranean since antiquity, and carried north into European monastery and cottage gardens. Its long association with remembrance is a literary and folkloric tradition rather than a documented practice.
How it is drunk
Infused domestically in Italy, Greece and North Africa, usually from a garden plant rather than a purchased product. It is one of several Mediterranean herbs that are drunk where they grow and cooked with everywhere else.
Production
Sprigs are cut and dried whole or stripped. It dries exceptionally well and holds its aroma for a long time, which is unusual among leaf botanicals.
Preparation
Infusion
Herbal infusion (tisane)
1–2 g/100 ml · 95–100 °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.
Related botanicals
- Sage — Two resinous Mediterranean shrubs, both assertive and both drunk mainly where they grow.
- Hyssop — Pine-camphor aromatics that read immediately as green herbal liqueur, and that dominate anything blended with them.
- Bay leaf — Resinous Mediterranean leaves whose dried form is preferred to fresh, and which scale badly past two leaves.
- Juniper berry — Pine-resin aromatics of the northern kitchen, both crushed before use to get anything out of them.
Comparisons
- Bay leaf vs rosemary — Two resinous Mediterranean leaves whose dried form holds up well, and both scale badly — three leaves of either makes a cup taste like a medicine cabinet smells.
- Hyssop vs rosemary — Two pine-camphor aromatics that read immediately as green herbal liqueur, and both dominate anything blended with them. One is a monastery-garden plant behind Chartreuse; the other is in every kitchen.
- Juniper vs rosemary — Two pine-resin aromatics of the northern kitchen, both crushed before use to get anything out of them, and both instantly familiar to anyone who drinks gin.
- Sage vs rosemary — Two resinous Mediterranean kitchen herbs that are also household drinks, and the pair most likely to be over-used because the cooking quantities are far higher than the drinking ones.
Evidence for this page
The botanical name, family and distribution above are checked against an external authority. Salvia rosmarinus Spenn. — 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 Rosemary 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.