Spice · Organic ingredient
Aniseed
Pimpinella anisum
Tiny ridged seeds in khaki and honey-brown with a sweet, liquorice-like perfume. They brew a gently sweet, warming cup and give spiced and black-tea blends a soft anise glow.
Blend with aniseed →The benefits
Why we love aniseed
Liquorice flavour, no liquorice
Aniseed naturally contains anethole, the aroma compound behind its sweet liquorice note, so it tastes the part without any liquorice root.
A classic after-dinner flavour
Anise has rounded off big meals for millennia, from Roman spiced cakes to the little glass of ouzo or pastis after dinner.
Naturally caffeine-free
There's no caffeine in aniseed, so its sweet warmth works at any time of day.
Good to know
No special cautions for most people in normal tea amounts.
Anise is native to the eastern Mediterranean and south-west Asia, and Egypt has grown it since ancient times. Romans baked anise into spiced cakes served at the end of grand feasts, and its flavour runs through ouzo, pastis, Italian biscotti and German Christmas biscuits. For tea, the seeds are lightly crushed and steeped.
Found in these tales
