navajo tea

a few weeks ago my vending neighbor at the farmer's market, petey mosquitey, gave me a baby plant called Navajo Tea. aptly named because the navajo people for generations harvested this flowering plant for tea which they served to guests, and drank on a daily basis. in these parts another familiar, spanish name is cota. being newly introduced to this plant, i did some research and found that the Hopi also widely used this plant for tea. so in some regions the familiar name is Hopi Tea, or Navajo-Hopi tea.  like most plants there are several names given depending on region and culture, in addition to the scientific name. in this case, the most commonly used name is Greenthread, due to it's thread thin green leaves, and the species i have is thelesperma megapotamicum. 

this plant as tea is more commonly used than i had thought. there are several online sites where you can order organic, sustainably grown and harvested Navajo Tea. one company i particularly like is Yanabah, a local company located in mesa, arizona, where the granddaughter of a Navajo woman named Yanabah sells this traditional healing tea in the spirit of her grandmother.

another great company is High Desert Farmers, located in gallup, new mexico. LA weekly interviewed the owner, steve heil, an elementary school teacher who, when he discovered greenthread, decided it was such an important part of culture that it must shared (buy Plateau Tea). never having farmed in his life, heil acquired a Western Sustainable Agriculture Research Grant to aid in his efforts.

now the good stuff! greenthread is medicinally used for the kidney due to it's mild diuretic effects. as a stomach tonic, it alleviates digestive problems and is also used as a blood purifier. constituents found are flavonoids - vitamin P and citrin combined - which is a class of antioxidant metabolites lending it's yellow pigmented flowers, and so it can also be used as a dye for textiles.

lots of great information can be found here, including pictures when in flower (which i don't have), a growing map, other species and their properties.