About me / My name is Dorota. I am a forager. I love the mountains and everything about them. I'm interested in a healthy, organic and balanced living with nature.  

Nowadays we are all striving to improve our lifestyles by looking after our diets, physical health and environment, coming back to live as naturally as possible. We buy eco, organic foods imported from all around the world and make sure that the production and packaging is to the EU eco regulations and keeps waste to a minimum.

But we forgot what we have just outside our door! 

 

When my mum came to visit me in the French Alps, she pointed out how lucky I am where I live. I was buying expensive tea’s with all the ‘right’ labels. I knew that Green tea is healthier than Black tea but Herbal teas beat them all. I had the whole cupboard filled with different types of teas for different needs - black tea for the caffeine, Green tea for antioxidants, Camomile for better sleep and digestion, Melissa for its calming effect …etc, all transported in shiny packaging (plastic bag within a box). 

 

I asked myself "Is it really necessary, all the packaging?". A cellophane wrapped box with 20 individual plastic wrapped tea bags. These tea bags are made of cloth or a paper that doesn’t dissolve(?) they're sealed using GLUE, with a string and a tag with a printed logo attached again using glue. What is in these bags? A small amount of finely ground dust representing tea. WTF?! Is it really tea? It could be anything ground up, thrown in a plastic covered bag and sealed with glue.

So I moved on from consuming the individually packed tea bags to using loose leaf teas.  I felt better about myself that I did’t contribute as much to recyclable and non-recyclable waste and I had more control of what is in my tea. At least I thought I did...

 

Then my mum asked me "Dorotka why are you drinking this?"

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I said, “What do you mean? It’s eco, organic loose leaf tea! It’s good for you and better for the environment. It's expensive so it must be good.“

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She said, “But it’s still in the package and you don’t really know what is in it, how and where it’s growing, how and who is harvesting it (probably on the big scale it’s harvested by a machine that also cuts and collects weeds, other plants and small insects before being dried and chop in to pieces and popped in the package). Come on, I will show you something…”

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And then we went for a walk in the nearby beautiful forest where she showed me all what I had considered weeds. 

Weeds that turned out to be amazing plants that have been used for centuries for their health and medical properties! 

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She said: “Look! All of this is the best eco, environmentally friendly, organic tea that you can imagine! Right in the middle of the French Alps, right under your nose!” 

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Mum told me about only a few of them (the most beneficial ones) that she has been told by her mum, knowledge passed down generations. 

We picked by hand each individual herb, one by one. Choosing only the best quality, making sure there was enough left for the bees to feed and for the plant to keep growing. 

Then she told me how to dry it and store it to enjoy the tea year round.

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In my cupboard now you can find these teas:

Nettle tea

Dandelion tea

Wormwood tea

Red Clover tea

Yarrow tea

Field Horsetail tea

Raspberry leaf tea

Wild strawberry leaf tea

Rosehip tea

Rose Leaf tea

 

All of them are absolutely amazing. Now I am truly feeling good about my body, heath, environment and my pocket! But the most I’m feeling good about is that I can pass my mum’s knowledge to you.