Cornflowers Tincture & Alcohol-Free Extract

Cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus), also called bachelor's button or bluebottle, are an annual of the daisy family, Asteraceae, native to the eastern Mediterranean and once a common weed of grain fields across Europe, where modern herbicides have made the wild plant rare; it is now grown in gardens and naturalized in North America. It stands 40 to 90 centimeters with slender, grey-green, cottony stems and narrow leaves, and from early summer carries flower heads 2 to 3 centimeters across of a vivid, pure blue, with ragged outer florets around a darker center. The dried petals keep their blue and are scattered through tea blends for color. We extract the dried flower.