Herb of the Year- Hops

Hops would not be the first thing to come to mind when you think of herbs, but this is 2018 "herb of the year" so my Herb Society's first meeting of the year was to begin to learn all it's secrets.
A side from imparting a bitter & tangy flavor to beer, hops has a rich tradition in medical use, mainly for anxiety, sleeplessness and poor digestion.
Hops tea is recommended as a mild sedative and remedy for insomnia. A pillow filled with hops was used to encourage sleep.

Hops are the cone like, fruit bodies (strobilles) of the plant, a large vine, the female vine is the one that produce the flowers.

These were from last fall, they are so cute!
In the manufacturing, the hops extract is used in skin creams & lotions.
At our meeting we made hops flower toner! Very refreshing this time of year with the dry houses. Here's a simple recipe to make your own.

1/3 cup of hop flowers

1/2 cup of boiling water
1 teaspoon witch hazel.
Pour boiling water over the flowers, let seep a half hour.

Strain out flowers, let hop infused water cool, add the witch hazel.

Dab the hop tea with a cotton ball onto a clean face for a nice facial toner. Store in tightly caped bottle in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

In our research it talked about the leave and flower heads had been used to produce a brown dye.

So I simmered some flowers and added alum mordanted wool to the pot,
this is the color I got, it's a little deeper yellow than the picture shows, the color looks like the delicate flowers.
I had a hard time getting a correct color picture.