Adaptogenic Blend, the Inner Fire — six lineages in the morning milk

The plants that walk with the cycles, to live inside them fully.

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The alchemical morning latte: it awakens the fire (Tejas) and anchors the vital essence (Ojas). A spoonful in warm morning milk. That is the House's gesture for this blend, and its name: the Inner Fire.

A brown and ochre powder that smells of the earth of the roots and the caramel of lucuma. It contains no caffeine.

Six plants, four lands

The blend brings together six plants from four countries, each with its tradition.

• Ashwagandha (genus Withania), from India.
• Shatavari (Asparagus racemosus), from India.
• Mucuna (Mucuna pruriens), from Mexico.
• Maca (Lepidium meyenii), from Peru, the Junín plateau.
• Chaga (Inonotus obliquus), from Estonia, as an 8:1 extract.
• Lucuma (Pouteria lucuma), the fruit of the Andes.

Three plants of Ayurveda

Ashwagandha, shatavari and mucuna come from the same pharmacopoeia. The texts of Ayurveda, from the Charaka Samhita onwards, place the first two among the rasayana: literally, the path of the essence, from rasa, the sap, the essence, and ayana, the way. They are taken over time, often in warm milk.

Ashwagandha means "smell of the horse" in Sanskrit: the fresh root smells of the stable. Shatavari reads as "she of the hundred roots", after the cluster of tubers it forms underground, and, in a popular reading, "she of the hundred husbands". Mucuna is called kapikacchu, "what makes the monkey itch": its pod is covered in hairs that sting like nettles.

Two plants of the Andes

Maca grows on the Junín plateau, in Peru, above 4,000 metres, where it freezes almost every night. The Quechua have grown it since pre-Inca times and eat it cooked, as mazamorra, a porridge that simmers for hours, sometimes with quinoa and milk. The Jesuit Bernabé Cobo described it in 1653. Our latte, prepared hot, stays on that path of cooking.

Lucuma is a tree of the Andean valleys. Its dense, yellow-orange, almost dry flesh tastes of caramel and maple syrup. It has been found in pre-Columbian tombs on the Peruvian coast, laid there for the journey of the dead. In the blend, it brings the sweetness: the cup needs no sugar.

Chaga, keeper of the fire

Chaga emerges from the bark of the living birch as a black, cracked lump. The Khanty of Siberia know it, the Sami too, and across the ocean the Cree and the Ojibwe. Among the Anishinaabe it is called shkitagen: a spark that falls on it does not go out, it smoulders in its substance and lights the flame again when it is needed. Robin Wall Kimmerer tells this in Braiding Sweetgrass.

A mushroom that keeps the fire, at the bottom of a blend called the Inner Fire. Ours is wild-harvested in Estonia and goes into the cup as an 8:1 extract.

Ojas and tejas

The reading that ties the six plants together is Ayurvedic. Ojas is the essence, the deep reserve, what nourishes; tejas is the fire of transformation, clarity. We read shatavari, maca and lucuma on the side of ojas, chaga, mucuna and ashwagandha on the side of tejas. It is a story the House tells, laid over a blend from four lands.

The word "adaptogen", for its part, is young. The Soviet toxicologist Nikolai Lazarev coined it in 1947; Israel Brekhman took it up in Vladivostok in the 1960s, while studying eleuthero. The plants in the blend were drunk for centuries before that word.

The morning gesture

• The milk: one heaped teaspoon, about 5 g, in a small saucepan with 250 ml of plant milk. Oat for roundness, almond for lightness, coconut for depth. Warm gently until it barely simmers, without boiling.
• Or water first: the powder simmers for two minutes in a splash of water, then the milk goes in.
• The foam: thirty seconds to a minute with a frother, by hand or electric.
• Additions: a pinch of green cardamom, a little Ceylon cinnamon, a spoonful of ceremonial cacao, a little honey if the sweetness of the lucuma is not enough.
• On the go: a 500 ml flask, to sip through the morning.

In the morning preferably, in place of coffee or beside it, at the same moment of the day. Adaptogens are taken over time: as a rough guide, two to four weeks at least, up to three to six months, with a week's break every three months, following the rhythm of Ayurvedic courses.

Precautions

• Pregnancy and breastfeeding: not advised without the opinion of a healthcare professional.
• Mucuna naturally contains L-DOPA: Parkinson's disease treatment, dopaminergic drugs, MAO inhibitors or other psychiatric treatment: medical advice before use.
• Ashwagandha: thyroid treatment, medical advice first. Rare cases of liver injury have been linked to ashwagandha supplements: stop and see a doctor if any unusual digestive symptoms appear. Avoid if allergic to nightshades.
• Chaga: anticoagulants or antiplatelet drugs, treated diabetes, autoimmune disease, medical advice first. It is rich in oxalates: avoid if there is a history of kidney stones.
• Shatavari and maca: allergy to asparagus (shatavari), hormone-dependent cancer or an oestrogen-sensitive condition (fibroids, endometriosis), medical advice before use.
• Planned surgery: stop two weeks before.
• Start with small amounts.
• This product is not a medicine and does not replace any treatment.

When in doubt, your doctor before the plant.

Sources

• Charaka Samhita: the rasayana.
• Bernabé Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo, 1653: maca.
• Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, Milkweed Editions, 2013: the shkitagen of the Anishinaabe.
• Israel I. Brekhman, Eleutherococcus senticosus, Vladivostok, 1968.
• INFUSE product sheet: composition, origins, sizes, preparation.