A Modern-Day Alchemist

Our colorful jar of flower water.

She’s a woman in her mid-sixties, quiet, gentle and non-assuming. She’s Jo’s second cousin whom we have not seen since we were 23 years old.

Linda Tisdale is among the most interesting people we have met on our journey through life and re-connecting with her is a great treat. She is an herbalist, living on 85 acres in the Maine woods in the town of Dexter.

She has built a business during the past 20 years by foraging on her property for leaves, roots and berries. And she has learned how these natural plants interact with our bodies. Linda bought Jo’s father’s camp in the Maine woods and then added other acreage over the years.

We visited with her two times this week and found this delightful and soft-spoken woman to be the genuine article. Jo noted that her grandfather, O.M. Robinson, was in exactly same business – he was a patent medicine salesman at the turn of the 20^th century.

We sat on the terrace at Linda’s home in the woods, drinking flower water from a half-gallon jar. On the jar’s label were the ingredients: Lavender, yarrow, echinacea, rose, self-heal, hearts ease pansy, calendula, black-eyed susan, lady’s mantle, and shasta daisy. All these flowers floated in the water and Linda used a strainer as she poured from the jar into our glasses. The water was a refreshing and complex mixture of soft sweetness with delightful aromas from the blossoms.

She and her partner Carol have a labradoodle that’s just a puppy who sprang with unbridled joy around the garden, then raced to our side and nuzzled, begging to be stroked and petted.

Linda spends her days collecting roots, bulbs and leaves, arranging them in drying racks and then creating tinctures and elixirs by mixing them together and adding water and/or grain alcohol.

These are some of the natural remedies she has concocted for a wide range of conditions:

Anti-Inflamatory: contains turmeric root, ginger root, white willow bark, rosemary and sacred basil.

Clear Mind – memory-enhancing formula: ginko leaf, tumeric root, gotu kola, sacred basil and rosemary.

Heart Circulation Tonic: Strengthens the heart and improves venous circulation. Contains hawthorn berry, ginko leaf, linden flower, lemon balm and prickly ash bark.

Menopause Support: Eases menopausal transition, lessens intensity of hormone-related discomforts and hot flashes, night sweats, irregular cycles, irratibility, anxiety. Contains dandelion root, vitex berry, ashwandha root, black cohosh root, nettle leaf, motherwort and lady’s mantle.

And on and on it goes. She has created a prostate tonic, calm nerves tonic, fever and flu relief and sinus support. Urinary tract problems and even periodontal support can be found in her formulary.

She wants to keep her business small so she doesn’t even have a web page. She has a phone number and an email address (207-924-5172; alchemilla.dexter@gmail.com). Her business is called Alchemilla. 

When she is unable to find the specific root, or plant on her home acreage she says she will buy from organic sources as far away as Oregon.

Linda Tisdale chats with Jo in her workshop. Her bottles are stored at the right of picture. Drying racks for plants hang between the rafters above our heads.

Checking the Tea Leaves

The older I get, the more I like to dabble in the extraordinary variety of tea. It’s a health thing, because I can drink tea without sugar. Not so with coffee. So I have burrowed into the joys of tea.

I’ve also found that it’s best to buy my tea in China. Now, I’m not a big fan of things Chinese because of the endless evidence of minimal quality control, as well as unethical behavior. But they definitely do know something about tea.  And Ali Express is the place to find a million varieties of tea – at every price point.

When we were in Sitka, Alaska, in 2010, we discovered Pu-ehr Tea. It’s strong and fermented. The beauty of Pu-ehr is it’s possible to use and re-use the same tea leaves up to five times in a day. This considerably reduces the cost of your cup of tea, without affecting your enjoyment. It also appeals to my Scottish sense of thrift. But Pu-ehr tends to be quite a strong flavor and I sometimes tire of it. So I’ve moved my affections over to Li-Shan Tea. This is a spectacular tea that comes in five levels of quality. And you get what you pay for.

But I digress. Jo and I wandered into Teavana, a tea-specializing shop in Burlington. There we met a young man behind the counter who definitely was a throw-back to the hippy culture of the 1970s. He wore a straw hat and had numerous tattoos. But he was very friendly and he offered us samples of teas. I said I wouldn’t mind trying the Oprah-endorsed ice tea and he quickly tried to steer me away from that. “It’s the one tea in the store that I wouldn’t recommend,” he said.

So I asked him about his Pu-ehr Tea and he said, “Oh, sure. We have many pure teas.”  No, I said, not pure…but Pu-ehr from China. It was as though I had pressed a secret button in his brain. “Ah, yes. You have come to the right place,” he said. He then went to his private locker and withdrew four paper-wrapped packages. “This must be your private stash,” I remarked. He laughed and said “We carry only one Pu-ehr Tea in the store. But this is my private collection.” He then proceeded to explain the fine qualities of each package. While he rhapsodized on, I sniffed his different wares and asked him where he gets it. He, too, orders directly from China. In addition, he walks a couple of blocks to the Dobra tea house on Church Street, Burlington. And they have eight different versions of Pu-ehr teas.

Matcha Tea

He then drew us into the Matcha teas from Japan. These are more like green tea powder which is mixed with a bamboo whisk and is infused at a relatively low temperature. He produced a sample of Matcha for us and I told him it didn’t really speak to me. In addition, I steer wide of green things and this was effectively green dishwater to my palate.

We left his store, thanking him for his interest in teas and congratulating him of his passion. We also rejoiced that up here in the northern reaches of Vermont, we were able to meet someone who is so passionate about the simple – and complex – mysteries of tea.