The plant: Matricaria chamomilla

• A modest annual — a metre tall at best, hollow-stemmed, feathery-leaved, with flower heads no wider than a fingernail.
• Wild roots — native across Europe and western Asia, usually on disturbed ground: field margins, roadsides, the edges of things.
• Grown in Egypt — the benchmark origin for camomile for well over a century.

From field to cup

• Harvested in passes — the flowers open in succession rather than all at once, so the crop is picked over several weeks rather than in a single cut.
• Picked at full bloom — only the flower head is used, taken when the white petals have begun to fold back from the yellow centre.
• Shade-dried, slowly — heat drives off the volatile oils that carry the scent, so drying happens out of the sun.
• Graded before packing — the heads are sorted by size and condition.