Wormwood
The silver-leaved Artemisia that gives absinthe its name and vermouth its etymology — Wermut is German for the plant. It is among the most bitter materials in European use and is drunk in tiny quantities in mixed infusions rather than alone.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Artemisia absinthium
- Family
- Asteraceae
- Part used
- Leaf, Aerial parts
- Origin
- Europe, northern Africa, western and central Asia
- Drunk in
- Val-de-Travers, Balkans, France, Hungary
Character
Overwhelmingly bitter with an anise-camphor aroma above it. A pinch is a large dose and nobody drinks a cup of it on its own twice.
Notes: anise, camphor, bitter herb
History
Absinthe production in Switzerland and France from the late eighteenth century made this the most commercially significant bitter herb in Europe, and the drink’s prohibition across much of the continent in 1915 destroyed that industry for most of a century. Vermouth takes both its bittering tradition and its name from the same plant.
How it is drunk
Used in absinthe, vermouth and bitter liqueurs across Europe, and drunk as a bitter infusion in the Balkans and central Europe where it is called pelin. A pinch in a mixed tisane is the normal quantity.
Production
Leafy tops are cut before flowering and dried in shade. The silver colour of good material comes from fine hairs on the leaf, and material that has gone green-brown has usually been dried in heat.
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
Several Artemisia species are sold as wormwood — sweet wormwood, Roman wormwood, mugwort — and they differ in bitterness by a wide margin. The absinthe plant is Artemisia absinthium specifically.
Common mistakes
- Measuring it by the spoon. This is a pinch-scale botanical and always has been.
Related botanicals
- Yarrow — Two bitter European Asteraceae used in pinches, and both were gruit bittering herbs before hops took over.
- Hop flower — The bitterest things in the European drinking repertoire, and the two that most reward being used in tiny quantities.
Comparisons
- Hops vs wormwood — The two bitterest things in the European drinking repertoire, and the two that most reward being used in tiny quantities. Both built industries on bitterness and neither is drunk alone by choice.
- Wormwood vs sage — Two silver-leaved aromatics of very different intensity. Sage is a drinkable herb across the Mediterranean; wormwood is a pinch-scale bitter that nobody drinks a cup of twice.
Guides
Evidence for this page
The botanical name, family and distribution above are checked against an external authority. Artemisia absinthium 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 Wormwood 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.