Botanical Kitchen is a small batch herbal food, beverage and tonic company located in Dunedin, New Zealand. The company was born out of the idea that plants, particularly medicinal ones, could be of huge benefit when more understood, taken regally and their interesting flavour notes explored. We want to normalise herbal medicine as food and see it as common place in the domestic kitchen, supermarket, restaurants and cafes right next to everyday items like tea, coffee, salt and pepper.
Penelope's background in Naturopathic practice has shown these plants to be of enormous benefit both on their own and along side allopathic medicine and can help to facilitate to a deeper connection to the world around us and the bodies we reside in. We are passionate about the fact that plants and herbs are 'peoples' medicine thus strive to educate, and encourage others to share their benefits and magic.
While studying culinary design, Penelope recognised that this notion of food as medicine was becoming more and more apparent in mainstream publications and more and more previously unheard of plants were making their way into everyday products and families kitchens. Our products capture this new wave of popular products and mix, merge and blend ancient and traditional herbal tonics, potions and elixirs with modern day techniques, trends and applications.
Above all our philosophy is to be kind and this encompasses all areas of Botanical Kitchen. All our products are kindly sourced, cruelty free, and with the very best benefit to the people who use them in mind. While our recipes focus on health, they do not just look at the health of the physical body and its systems but take into account the health of our mind, soul and the health of our family, relationships and our idea of how we sit in this world. We strive to keep our waste to a minimum and endeavour to share all we know and answer any questions about herbal medicine when asked. At times we will share recipes for our commercial products as we believe that the more the magic of the plants are shared, the more benefit there will be to us all.
We would love to hear from anyone who is interested in learning more, working with plants, or has something to share with us so please get in touch.