The drying room is two metres by three, has no window and is the first place visitors ask to see. Open the door and it smells like a hay loft that has been to a good restaurant.
Why we dry at all
Fresh herbs are bright and loud. Dried slowly, they turn deeper and rounder, and they keep. Most of our drinks use both: fresh for the top of the flavour, dried for the bottom. Lemon verbena, yarrow and juniper tips all spend three weeks in here before they go anywhere near water.
“Slow and dark. If you can smell it from the corridor, it is drying too fast.”
The rules of the room
Small bunches, tied loosely, hung stalk up
Eighteen degrees, a fan on low, no daylight
Every string gets a tag with the date and the field
Nothing goes in a jar until the stalk snaps cleanly
Come and see it
We open the workshop on the first Saturday of every month. The tour is free, takes about forty minutes and ends at the tasting table. Bring a jumper: the cold store is next.
