Essiac Circle of Friends
Essiac Herb Quality
Organic, U.S.-Grown Herbs - Sheep Sorrel root included
Essiac tea is only as good as the herbs in it. Therefore, the quality of each Essiac herb is paramount to the effectiveness of the tea.
Our "Special Blend Essiac Tea Herbs" are the highest quality herbs for making Essiac tea in your own home just like Rene Caisse did!
We grow our own sheep sorrel [rumex acetosella] with the focus on the roots which are not available from herb companies on the internet. Rene Caisse stated that sheep sorrel roots are "very essential" to the Essiac tea formula. In other words it's not "Essiac" tea without the roots.
We call our sheep sorrel roots "Better Than Organic" since we exceed the government-ordained standards for organic certification. Click here to learn more about how we grow our sheep sorrel.
US-grown certified organic sheep sorrel leaf is no longer available from the major herb companies. The main reason is that it is so labor-intensive to grow, weed, harvest and dry properly. Farm workers are now harder to find and labor costs have increased dramatically in the US.
Therefore, the major herb companies are now importing herbs from countries like Croatia and Bulgaria, which are cheaper but of very low quality. And there is no way to confirm whether they are certified organic or not. They may be labeled "certified organic" but that is speculation at best.
Sheep sorrel must be green and properly stored using oxygen absorbers to preserve freshness and in metal containers to protect it from exposure to insects, rodents and electro-magnetic frequencies (EMF) from cell towers, smart meters, routers, etc.
The picture on the left shows our separate herbs that we use in our Essiac tea. You can see that our sheep sorrel is green.
The herbs below are sheep sorrel pictures taken from major herb suppliers and one of them shows yellow (not green) sheep sorrel and the other picture shows brown sheep sorrel from a different company.
Plus, these major herb companies do not include sheep sorrel roots in their "Essiac tea" so it is fraudulently labeled "Essiac".
What is our "Special Blend Essiac Tea Herbs"?
We double-source our herbs. That is, we blend each herb in the true Essiac formula with the same herb from a different source. Government "organic" certification standards do not require mineral amendments to the soil. Therefore, we can better insure a complete balance of minerals by blending two or more organic herb sources.
Sheep sorrel is mineral-loving herb and prefers to grow in gravel or sandy soil. Dr. Gabriel Cousins** refers to both sheep sorrel and slippery elm as containing "super-colloid minerals". Colloidal minerals are plant-derived but obviously the plants cannot contain any minerals that are not already in the soil. That is why we add colloidal minerals to the soil in the form of certified organic humic shale and certified organic Icelandic kelp.
We also grown our own Turkey rhubarb (rheum palmatum tanguticum) which is the best tasting rhubarb root. Rene Caisse switched from Indian rhubarb to Turkey rhubarb due to the many complaints of the Indian rhubarb taste and smell. (Turkey rhubarb originated in the mountains of China and Indian rhubarb originated from Indonesia--two completely different climates, two different herbs.)
All of our herbs are either certified organic except for our "Better Than Organic" sheep sorrel and Turkey rhubarb, which we double-source with high-quality certified organic Turkey rhubarb.
To find out more about us and what we do, please also click on the About Us, Growing Methods and Harvesting Roots buttons above.
The picture on the right shows our high-quality Essiac herbs in the proper proportions as documented by Mary McPherson who made the tea for Rene Caisse: top left, cut Burdock root; top right, powdered Sheep Sorrel leaf; center, powdered Sheep Sorrel root; bottom left, powdered Turkey Rhubarb root; bottom right, powdered Slippery Elm bark
*Sheila Snow is the most credible Essiac historian who knew Rene Caisse personally and helped her procure herbs for her cancer patients.
**Dr. Gabriel Cousens is known for his "SIMPLY RAW: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days" program and amazing video.
BUYER BEWARE: There are only a few websites that claim they include sheep sorrel roots in their Essiac herbs. However, an unethical company could only add a pinch of powdered sheep sorrel roots to a pound of sheep sorrel leaf and legally say that the roots are included. Obviously, such an insignificant or small amount of root will have negligible effect health-wise.
Therefore the only ethical way to prove that roots are included is to state the exact percentage of roots in relation to the total sheep sorrel content and disclose with pictures how the roots are separated from the top of plant. Essiac tea should contain at least 10% sheep sorrel roots. That translates to a minimum of 1.6 ounces of roots in every pound of sheep sorrel herb. We also offer higher percentages of sheep sorrel roots for our Extra-Strength Essiac Tea Herbs.
Standard farm machinery cannot accurately separate the roots from the tops. This can only be done by hand in a labor-intensive, time-consuming effort. Therefore it is very expensive to grow and harvest the roots. Due to the high labor costs and smaller root size sheep sorrel roots are more than twice as expensive as ginseng or goldenseal roots. However, it is not practical or affordable for an organic farmer to employ many workers to hand-trim the roots from the aerial part of the plant. For this reason you will not be able to find a credible sheep sorrel root supplier on the internet.
There are plenty of cheap "Essiac" imitations on the internet. They are cheap because they do not add sheep sorrel roots (in spite of what they may claim on their website). Since Rene Caisse stated that sheep sorrel roots are "very essential" to the Essiac formula, they are falsely claiming it is Essiac.
If sheep sorrel roots are not included in sufficient amount, it is not Essiac.
We are aware of at least one Essiac website that fraudulently claims to have included sheep sorrel roots. Therefore they do not tell you how they grow and harvest them and show pictures of their operations like we do.
Also, several websites claim that Essiac tea has eight herbs instead of four. This is false information that has been disproven with legal documentation from Mary McPherson and Sheila Snow. Click here for more information about these eight-herb teas.
To see how we grow and harvest sheep sorrel roots click on the "Growing Methods" and "Harvesting Roots" links or the buttons at the top of this page.
We also offer Bulk Essiac Tea Herbs with exact percentages of sheep sorrel roots.
[We no longer include burdock seed in our Essiac herbs, which was suggested by Sheila Snow* in her books. We only use US-grown herbs and certified organic burdock seed is no longer available in the US. Our burdock root is certified organic and grown in the US.]
*Sheila Snow worked directly with Rene Caisse and both she and Mali Klein also worked extensively with Mary McPherson. Sheila spent 27 years compiling a priceless Essiac Archive collection of Rene Caisse's personal papers and correspondence, legal documents, the only existing clinic case records, many hours of tape recorded conversations, memorabilia and other documentation of Essiac history.
* IMPORTANT NOTICE: We do not sell nor are we associated with the trademarked (TM) or registered (R) "ESSIAC" products that are sold by other companies in Canada and the US. We only sell the herbs so that people can make Rene Caisse's tea in their own homes. Rene Caisse never registered, patented or trademarked "Essiac" which was simply her last name spelled backwards and was originally derived from a native American herbal remedy for cancer. The word "Essiac" was in common usage in the 1930s, decades before anyone tried to corner the market by "registering" or "trademarking" the word "Essiac". Furthermore, we only use the "Essiac" formula which Rene Caisse's best friend, Mary McPherson, officially entered into the public domain in a sworn affidavit in 1994 in Bracebridge, Ontario. This formula uses Turkey rhubarb root which is much more pleasant tasting than the Indian rhubarb products on the market (which is why Rene Caisse switched to Turkey rhubarb in her final Essiac tea formula). The HealthFreedom.info website has posted Mary McPherson's "Essiac" formula affidavit here. This is the formula we use.
We include sheep sorrel roots in all our Essiac tea products at precise percentages. The percentages refer to the ratio of sheep sorrel root to the total sheep sorrel content in the formula.
The information on this page and on this website is for historical and general information purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice.
Essiac Circle of Friends
Essiac NorthWest, Humbleweed and many others have all contributed to the Essiac Circle of Friends, a natural society of like-minded people continuing traditional native herbal healing in the spirit of the Seven Fires Prophecy. The Essiac Circle of Friends is a cooperative effort to provide the highest quality Essiac tea herbs on the planet. It is not in itself a corporation or business but some of the people involved have started their own retail outlets to provide these high-quality herbs to the public. We are the people who plant, grow, harvest and supply these high-quality herbs to those in need. The Circle has evolved over the past decade with various people contributing to it and then moving on in the ever-changing ebb and flow of life.
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