Thyme

Teas with Thyme

This category features original recipes created in our Food Incubator. Thyme can be combined with delicate flowers, fresh-tasting leafy herbs and fuller-flavoured plant-based ingredients.

Prepare your chosen blend as a hot infusion or, if recommended for the individual product, serve it chilled as a refreshing herbal drink. Follow the instructions on the packaging regarding the amount of tea, water temperature and brewing time.

Traditional uses and research into Thyme

Thyme has a long tradition in Mediterranean cuisine and European herbalism. Its aromatic aerial parts were used to prepare herbal infusions, syrups and herbal blends, as well as to season soups, sauces, vegetable dishes and marinades.

In traditional herbal practices, Thyme preparations were primarily associated with the colder months, the respiratory tract and coughs. The European Medicines Agency states that certain precisely defined preparations made from thyme herb are used, based on long-standing use, as traditional herbal medicinal products for productive coughs associated with colds.

The aerial parts naturally contain aromatic essential oil, with thymol and carvacrol among its notable components. Their levels depend on the variety, growing conditions, harvest period and processing method. The plant also contains flavonoids, phenolic acids and other naturally occurring plant compounds.

Scientific research focuses primarily on the chemical composition of thyme essential oil and the activity of its extracts in laboratory models. Areas studied include their effects against selected microorganisms, antioxidant activity and mechanisms associated with airway smooth muscle.

Thyme at a glance

• Botanical name: Thymus vulgaris L.
• Family: Lamiaceae (mint family)
• Plant type: aromatic evergreen subshrub
• Origin: south-western Europe and south-eastern Italy
• Part used in teas: dried aerial parts, mainly leaves and flowers
• Flavour and aroma: distinctive, spicy, warming and subtly bitter
• Uses: in tea blends, cooking and traditional herbalism

Thyme produces low, branching stems with small aromatic leaves. During the flowering season, small pink to purplish flowers appear on the plant. Its dried aerial parts are used in tea blends, complementing other herbs with an intense aroma and fuller, spicy flavour.