What inspires us

For thousands of years, people have prepared plants as tonics, tinctures and teas. The Amazon rainforest is home to some of the most remarkable of them, yet until recently few were easy to find outside the region. We started Ancestral Herbs to make traditional Amazonian botanicals accessible: carefully prepared, and described honestly.

Grown and harvested in the Amazon

Our plants grow in their natural habitat, under the sun in the Amazon rainforest near Pucallpa, Peru, away from pesticides and herbicides. They are harvested by hand with the future of the forest in mind. With B. caapi, only the tops of the vines are cut, so the mature vines keep growing, and when a whole plant is harvested, two more are planted in its place.

Working with the Shipibo-Konibo community

We work alongside a Shipibo-Konibo community in the Pucallpa region, and local people are hired to harvest the plants. Your purchase supports that work. The community we collaborate with gives back in turn, helping to build local roads and irrigation systems and providing toys for local children during the holidays. We’re grateful to learn from their knowledge of these plants, and to share it with people who might not otherwise have access to it.

How our tinctures are made

Our tinctures are brewed using a traditional Peruvian method. The plants are cooked over a wood fire in 30-gallon pots and stirred by hand over several days, then concentrated into a 40:1 extract. Each tincture contains just three ingredients: the plant, distilled water and pure cane alcohol. Because the extracts are concentrated, a serving is only a few drops. (Our Sananga eye drops are prepared differently, from the plant and distilled water only.)