Thyme tea

Thyme tea (thyme infusion, wild thyme tea) is brewed not from tea-plant leaves but from the dried flowering herb of wild thyme (Thymus serpyllum) or of common thyme (Thymus vulgaris). You can brew the herb on its own or with other ingredients, but EU rules treat it as a herb.

The two plants are easy to confuse. Common thyme, together with T. zygis, is covered by a 2013 European Medicines Agency (EMA) monograph (EMA/HMPC/342332/2013): aerial parts, leaves and flowers, in the traditional-use category. Wild thyme, Thymus serpyllum, has a separate monograph from the European organisation ESCOP: whole or cut dried flowering aerial parts. Ukrainian pharmacies sell wild thyme herb, among other forms, in 1.5 g filter bags.

Thyme essential oil is a different product with its own EMA monograph. According to a secondary account, the under-18 restrictions apply to the oil, not to the herb used for infusion.

Thym de Provence has the most precise address. The EU registered this name as a PGI by Implementing Regulation 2018/266 of 19 February 2018 (eAmbrosia EUGI00000015976; application filed in 2015). The protection covers the raw material, common thyme from Provence sold as dried or frozen leaves or as sprigs, not the drink. Germany objected because of the risk to the name Herbes de Provence, and that name remains allowed in the EU.

Thyme is on the EU's short list of herbs whose dry product may hold up to 400 µg/kg of pyrrolizidine alkaloids, and the same ceiling applies to a blend made only of such herbs. Which other plants are on that list, and where stricter figures apply, is explained on the page Herbal and other infusions.

Two Latin names tell the plants apart on a label: Thymus serpyllum means wild thyme, Thymus vulgaris common thyme. A PGI mark with the name Thym de Provence shows where the raw material comes from. The tea doses in the 2013 EMA monograph survive only in a garbled secondary account, so follow the instructions on the pack.

Why this matters to you: you can tell wild thyme from common thyme by the Latin name, you know what PGI means on the pack, and you will not apply limits meant for the oil to the herb.