What cold-pressing actually does to a herbal tonic

We do not cold-press at The Vegan Teahouse. Here is why, and what is going on when other operations sell you a cold-pressed herb.

Cold-pressing is a real and useful technique for certain plant materials, mostly oily seeds and fruits. It is not particularly useful for most leafy or flower-based herbal preparations, which is where most of the confusion in the wellness market comes from.

When a seed is cold-pressed, the cell walls are mechanically broken without heat, releasing the oils intact. This is how good olive oil and good sesame oil are produced. The herbs we work with at The Vegan Teahouse are dried leaf, dried flower, and dried root. None of these contain enough free oil to make pressing a useful extraction method.

What does extract well from dried botanicals is hot water. Hot water dissolves the water-soluble compounds (most of the bitters, most of the flavonoids, most of the simple sugars) and steam carries off the volatile oils into the cup as you sip. That is what tea is. It is the optimal extraction method for the kind of plant material we work with.

If someone is selling you cold-pressed chamomile, they are either selling you cold-pressed chamomile seed oil, which is a real thing but not a tonic, or they are misusing the word. Walk away.