The chamomile tea most people drink is a shadow of what the plant can offer. A teabag steeped for two minutes in water just off the boil produces a pale, faintly sweet liquid that does very little. The real thing is different in colour, scent, flavour and effect.
Matricaria chamomilla — German chamomile, the variety used medicinally — is one of the most extensively researched herbs in the European tradition. The evidence for its effectiveness in anxiety, insomnia, digestive inflammation and wound healing is more substantial than its gentle reputation might suggest. The reason most people do not experience this is simply that the tea they are making is not strong enough.
This guide covers chamomile from seed to cup: how to grow it, when to harvest it, how to dry it properly, and the specific technique for brewing a tea that actually works.
German or Roman: Which to Grow
Two plants share the common name chamomile, and the distinction matters. German chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla) is the medicinal variety — the one with the hollow, cone-shaped receptacle beneath the flowers, the strongly apple-scented foliage, and the higher concentration of medicinally active compounds. Roman chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile) is a lower-growing, creeping plant that is more often used as a lawn substitute than as a medicine.
For tea and apothecary use, grow German chamomile. It is a true annual, which means it completes its life cycle in a single season and will self-seed reliably if you allow some flowers to go to seed — meaning once you have it established in the right spot, you are unlikely to need to replant it. It grows to about 60cm tall, produces dozens of flowers over a six-week season, and has a pleasingly simple set of growing requirements.
Growing Chamomile for Medicine
Chamomile does not require rich soil — it grows in lean, well-drained conditions and has evolved in the kinds of disturbed ground and road verges where more demanding plants cannot compete. A sunny to partly sunny position with average garden soil is sufficient. It resents heavy clay and waterlogged conditions.
Sow directly into the ground in early spring, barely covering the seeds with a fine layer of compost — chamomile seeds need light to germinate and should not be buried. Thin to about 20cm apart once seedlings are established. In subsequent years, the self-seeded plants will appear without any intervention; simply thin them as needed.
For container growing, chamomile does well in a pot at least 20cm deep, in a loam-based compost with good drainage. Water when the surface is dry and do not feed heavily — overfeeding produces lush, weak growth with less oil concentration.
Harvesting at Peak Potency
Chamomile flowers must be harvested at a specific point in their development: when the petals are fully open and spreading horizontally from the yellow centre — not yet but also not past the moment when the petals begin to turn back, which indicates that flowering is ending and oil concentration is declining.
This window can be as short as two or three days per flower, so you will need to check the plants daily during flowering season and harvest as flowers come ready. The traditional harvest tool is a chamomile comb — a wooden or plastic implement with widely spaced tines that strips the flowers from the stems as you draw it through the plant. In the absence of a chamomile comb, flowers can be picked individually by pinching the stem just below the head.
Pick in the morning, after the dew has dried. Spread the flowers immediately in a single layer for drying — never pile them or they will begin to heat and deteriorate within hours.
Drying Without Losing the Oils
Chamomile flowers are delicate and dry quickly under good conditions, but they must be dried fast to preserve the volatile oil content that gives the tea its effectiveness and flavour. The risk in slow drying is that the oils begin to evaporate before the moisture has fully left the flower — you end up with dry material that has already lost much of what made it valuable.
The best method for chamomile is a food dehydrator set to 35°C, which can dry the flowers completely in four to six hours. The next best is a flat drying screen in a warm, well-ventilated room with good airflow — a fan set to low, pointed across rather than directly at the screen, significantly speeds the process. Direct sunlight will dry the flowers quickly but also degrades the flavour and active compounds.
Properly dried chamomile flowers should retain their yellow centre and white petals, smell strongly and sweetly of apple and chamomile, and crumble readily between the fingers. If they have gone brown or smell musty, something went wrong in the drying process and the batch will not make a particularly effective tea.
The Proper Brewing Method
Four variables determine whether chamomile tea works: the amount of herb, the temperature of the water, the length of the steep, and whether the cup is covered.
Use two generous teaspoons of dried chamomile flowers per cup — this is significantly more than a teabag contains and significantly more than most people use when making tea from loose dried herbs. One teaspoon produces a pleasant, pale tea. Two teaspoons produces a medicinally relevant one. The difference is not subtle.
Use water that is hot but not at a full rolling boil — around 90°C, which in practical terms means water that has boiled and been allowed to sit for thirty seconds. Boiling water damages some of the more delicate aromatic compounds.
Cover the cup immediately and steep for ten to fifteen minutes. The covering is not optional: the volatile oils that give chamomile its sedative and anxiolytic properties are water-soluble but also volatile, meaning they will escape with the steam if the cup is left uncovered. A small saucer placed over the cup is sufficient.
After steeping, press the spent flowers gently against a strainer to express the last of the infusion, then discard. The resulting tea should be a clear, rich amber-gold colour with a strong, sweet, apple-chamomile scent.
How and When to Drink It
Chamomile tea made this way has three distinct applications in the home apothecary, and they require slightly different approaches.
As a digestive, drink one cup after a main meal, particularly if you are prone to bloating, cramping or acid after eating. The antispasmodic properties work on the smooth muscle of the digestive tract in the same way, if more gently, that peppermint does.
As a nervine — for anxiety, tension or the general state of mild overwhelm that arrives in the late afternoon — drink one to two cups over the course of an hour, beginning around an hour after lunch or mid-afternoon. The effect is gentle and cumulative; chamomile does not produce sedation but produces a measurable reduction in the physical manifestations of anxiety over the course of thirty to sixty minutes.
As a sleep aid, drink one cup approximately an hour before sleep — not immediately before, as the bladder consideration becomes an obstacle. The apigenin in chamomile binds to the benzodiazepine receptors in the brain, producing a mild sedative effect that supports the transition to sleep without causing grogginess the following morning.
A final note: chamomile is one of the most common triggers of allergic reactions in people sensitive to plants in the Asteraceae family, which includes ragweed, daisies and chrysanthemums. If you have known allergies in this family, introduce chamomile very cautiously and discontinue if you notice any reaction.
Chamomile asks very little of the gardener. In return, it offers one of the most reliable remedies in the home apothecary.
— Moss & Lore —