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Herbal basics
What they are, why ours taste strong, and the easiest ways to take them.
Let's be honest, many herbal tinctures have a bitter flavor. If you have ever taken a dropper and made a face, you are not alone.
Some of Sprigs tinctures taste bitter because of the nature of the individual herbs in the formula. Many herbs contain active constituents known as ‘bitter principles’.
While this flavor is not a favorite in the western diet, it is revered in many cultures, and actually stimulates receptors on the tongue that release healthy digestive enzymes.
Sprigs uses whole traditional herbs, and the tinctures contain no added sugar, flavoring or sweeteners. Just real herbs, prepared the traditional way.
Tinctures are prepared by soaking herbs in a liquid, referred to as the menstruum or soaking agent. The plant parts soak for several weeks. During that time, the liquid pulls out active constituents that are in that particular herb.
Each specific herb has an optimum soaking time to get the active constituents released into the liquid. Making coffee is a similar process, where water is used as the extracting agent. The longer the coffee sits in the liquid, the stronger it gets.
That is why a few drops of tincture can be so concentrated. It is not watered down. It is not stretched out. It is strong, on purpose.
Start with real herbs
Whole herbs go into either grain alcohol or vegetable glycerin.
Let them soak
Weeks of steeping pull the plant's active constituents into the liquid.
Bottle it as it is
Strained and bottled, with nothing added to mask the taste.
For some herbs, the bitter taste is not just something to put up with. It is part of how the herb helps you.
Your body notices bitterness not just on your tongue, but all through your stomach and gut. When something bitter hits those spots, it tells your body to get ready to digest food. Your body starts making more saliva, more stomach acid, and more bile, which all help break down your meal.
Bitter herbs have been used before meals for generations to help the body digest well.
Not every tincture at Sprigs is made the same way, and that changes the taste too.
Some of our tinctures, like Breathe Easy, are made with grain alcohol. Alcohol is very good at pulling a wide range of constituents out of herbs, but it also brings out more bitterness and a sharper taste.
Glycerin is naturally sweet, so these tinctures taste much gentler. Our kids line is made with glycerin instead of alcohol. It is alcohol-free, gentle and naturally sweeter, which makes a big difference when you are trying to get a little one to take their drops without a fuss.
We could make our tinctures taste like candy, but that would mean watering down the active constituents or adding things that do not belong in a clean herbal extract. So the next time a tincture makes you pucker, take it as a good sign. That is the herb doing its job.