Ashley is the nose behind the concept of Ashtree Wildcrafting. Yes, I said nose. . . you see, she has a very unique and useful gift. Once she’s read over, discussed and pondered the health benefits of a given plant, all she has to do when formulating a tea is to smell each plant to know if it should be included or not. When we stop to examine exactly what her nose said to add to the tea, we generally discover:
- The plants chosen work well together.
- The plants chosen have similar or complimentary general health or medicinal properties.
- The plants, more often than not, create a pleasing blended scent and flavour.
Ashley’s special gift means she is the master tea blender at Ashtree Wildcrafting.
Marilynn is the geek behind Ashtree Wildcrafting. She ensures the website is up and running, mans the Facebook page, looks after the desktop publishing side of things, among other duties.
Both Marilynn and Ashley can be found during Spring, Summer and Fall, out somewhere foraging either for home use, or for Ashtree Wildcrafting. Together as a team, they harvest, process, store, and prepare the various ingredients that go into a nice cup of wild tea.
Harvesting is done on Crown Land with BC’s Front Counter website helping to guide the wild foraging forays. At times, Crown Land is overlapped with leasers, City properties, Indigenous treaties, etc. and permission must be obtained to forage in those areas.
Processing generally involves cleaning what is brought home and preparing it for drying. Once a given herb is dried, it is then crushed or chopped and stored in airtight, dark containers to maintain freshness and to keep light-sensitive nutrition from dissipating. No chemicals or preservatives are used during this process.
We hope you enjoy our wild teas as much as we enjoy bringing them to you.