Kinh Lay Cha in English

Epazote plant

Leaf and plants of epazote

Leaves, plants and unripe fruits; the latter possess strongest taste. Most of these would be best utilized fresh, but considering that the fresh natural herb is present only for people that have unique garden, the dried herb is also typical. Its aroma is still satisfactory.

The seeds contain much more gas (about 1percent) and they are mainly utilized for their vermifuge powers (see below).

Chenopodi­aceae (goose-foot household).

Epazote’s scent is strong, but hard to explain. Folks would usually compare it with (in no particular order) citrus, petroleum, savory, mint or putty. I believe it smells like epazote.

Remember that you will find various chemotypes; i've seen flowers that indeed posses an energizing citrus odour (see in addition lemon myrtle for a survey of lemon-scented plants), but in my regular plants I could maybe not get a hold of any citrus high quality (others could, amazingly, before I told them exactly what the plant had been likely to smell like).

Epazote inflorescence

Epazote flowers

All aerial plant parts contain an important oil (0.7% in the leaves, 2.5% in the unripe fresh fruits) which will be consists of numerous mono­terpenoids (α-pinene, α-phell­andrene, thymol, myrcene, -cymene, terpinene, campher, trans-isocarveol) and ascaridole, a mono­terpenoid peroxide. Natural oils from Latin American plants usually contain com­paratively less ascaridole (10%), while many mono­terpenoids (limonene, trans-isocarveol, α-pinene, α-phell­andren) may reach degrees of 30percent and much more; this leads to a less intensive, but complex flavor. On the reverse side, flowers cultivated in Europe or Asia have actually a much stronger flavor as a result of the high quantities of ascaridol (70percent, one source also states 86percent).