Woad Tincture & Alcohol-Free Extract

Woad (Isatis tinctoria, listed in the catalogue as Isatis indigotica, now treated as the same species) is a biennial of the mustard family, Brassicaceae, native to the steppes of the Caucasus and Central Asia and cultivated in Europe and China as a dye plant since antiquity. It forms a rosette of large, blue-green, lanceolate leaves in its first year and in the second sends up a branched stem 50 to 120 cm tall with clouds of small yellow four-petaled flowers followed by flat, dangling, dark brown seed pods. Fermented leaves yield the blue dye indigo. We extract the dried leaf.