Sassafras
Sassafras albidum

We offer both Sassafras Leaf and Sassafras Root Bark. The traditional use of sassafras tea in herbal medicine is to help the immune system recover from a bout with poison oak or sumac, especially when the leaf has been chewed and peri anal inflammation has resulted. Sassafras tea is also used to induce sweating to break a fever, and in douches to relieve inflammation caused by urinary tract infection in women.

Sassafras tea, made from the root bark or just the bark, has been drunk for over three centuries in the lower Mississippi valley. Sassafras bark oil is used to flavor medicines and candy and in some perfumes. Along with commercially available sarsaparilla, sassafras remains an ingredient in use among hobby or microbrew enthusiasts.

In 1960, the FDA banned the use of sassafras oil and safrole in commercially mass produced foods and drugs based on the animal studies and human case reports. Several years later sassafras tea was banned, a ban that lasted until the passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act in 1994. Sassafras root extracts which do not contain safrole or in which the safrole has been removed are permissible, and are still widely used commercially in teas and root beers.