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By Szymon Szyszczakiewicz of Foragerium
Lilac blossom (Syringa spp.) takes me back to some of my earliest childhood memories from N/W Poland, marking the changing seasons. Sweet-scented flowers were a clear sign that winter was behind us.
We used to pick bunches of lilacs to decorate our tables, making our parents happy. We'd stick the lilacs in a glass of water, and the colour and scent would fill the room for days.
Lilac flowers typically have four petals, but occasionally you'll find some with five or even six. Finding a five-petalled floret was considered lucky, akin to finding a four-leaf clover in Ireland. However, with lilacs, the tradition was to eat the lucky floret. This almost forgotten tradition is still practised by children in some parts of Poland. These days, I collect lilacs mainly for making fermented tea. It's sweet and powerful with a distinct aroma of caramel.
What causes flowers to completely change their colour, smell and taste on fermenting? Why do these florally scented white or purple flowers become brown, almost tobacco/caramel scented? This happens due to a combination of enzymatic transformation, oxidation and polymerisation. The enzyme polyphenol oxidase, oxidises polyphenols to quinones, creating sweetness, resembling caramel and chocolate profiles. This is similar to the ripening of a banana: fresh petals are like a green banana full of polyphenols while petals, after a few hours in a jar, are like a yellow or brown banana; full of quinones.
The second stage, drying, involves further oxidation. Flowers become visibly darker, which is fascinating to watch. Oxidation deepens the colour and enhances the flavour of the tea.
How to identify lilac
This is a shrub to small tree in the olive family (Oleaceae), with glossy, cordate (heart-shaped) leaves and smooth bark. Watch out for it in spring when the densly-packed, flower spikes (a bit like an upside-down ice-cream cone), betray themselves with their signature scent. If you aren’t sure what a lilac smells like, ask for a whiff at any soap or pefume shop where it has remained one of the most popular scents for many years.
Synonymous with the colour, for which it was named, these usually come as a light pink-blue-purple but modern cultivars from garden centres can appear appear from white to deep violet. As long as you can get your ‘nose in’ to the distinctive aroma, you shouldn’t go too far wrong.
Medicinal insights from Kim Walker
Not being a British or Polish native, lilac is little used in folk and herbal medicine. Instead, it hails from South East Europe and Asia across the Himalayas and China to Japan. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), for example, the bark is used for treating a range of problems including heart, liver and digestive issues. Research shows that a compound named after its genus, syringinin, can positively affect liver function. It has become an incredibly popular garden plant in Europe due to its beautifully scented and attractive flowers. Now it is a common spring sight across many hedgerows and gardens where the abundant flowers can be gathered to flavour sugar (simply layer them together) and of course, ferment into a beautiful tea!
How to make lilac tea:
Collect flowers, removing most of the green parts. If you tolerate a bitter taste, you can leave more green bits.
Pack the flowers tightly in a jar, expel as much air as possible, and close the lid.
Keep the jar at a warm temperature, preferably between 35 and 45°C, for 4-8 hours or until most flowers lose their colour. This is when fermentation and enzymatic activity occur.
Remove the flowers from the jar, spread them thinly, and dry them. This is when oxidation takes place. You can often smell the caramel aroma during this stage.
Enjoy your lilac tea! (which you make just like any cup of tea: infuse a teaspoon of the ferment in boiling water for 5 mins).
