Muicle (Té de Sangre)

Muicle is Oaxacan. The plant grows in the Central Valleys, around Tlacolula, Etla, Zaachila, in the patios of houses where the abuelas have always kept a bush by the back door for when somebody's blood gets weak. They call it te de sangre, blood tea, because that is what it is for. Anemia, fatigue, the heaviness women feel after childbirth, the slow recovery from a long sickness. You drink it warm, every morning, until your color comes back.

The leaves are nothing special to look at. Dark green, slightly fuzzy, narrow. But the moment they hit hot water, the brew turns. First blue-violet, then garnet, then the color of dark wine. The pre-Hispanic Nahuatl name was mohuitli, which became muicle in mestizo Spanish, and the same plant gave the dyers of pre-Columbian Mexico a deep purple-blue ink. The medicine and the dye come from the same chemistry in the leaf.

My mother kept dried muicle in a glass jar in the cupboard. She bought it from a yerbera at the Mercado de Sonora every few months, in small paper bags marked in pencil. When my sister had her first baby and could not get out of bed for the tiredness, my mother made her a pot of muicle every morning for three weeks. Within a month she was carrying the baby down the stairs. I am not making a medical claim. I am telling you what I watched. The senoras of Oaxaca have known this for centuries and they do not need a clinical trial to confirm it.

Keep this brew simple. Water, leaves, a stick of canela, a little piloncillo if you want it sweet. No me vengas con atajos and no me vengas with lavender or chamomile or rooibos blends. Muicle stands on its own.