Té de Damiana Sudcaliforniana

This is from Baja California Sur. Not the Yucatan, not central Mexico, the long dry peninsula where the Sierra de la Laguna pours down toward the Sea of Cortez and damiana grows wild along the rocky slopes. Turnera diffosa. A small yellow-flowered shrub that smells faintly of resin when you brush against it. The Guaycura, the indigenous people who lived on the peninsula long before the Jesuits arrived, were already drinking it.

Damiana is not a flavor. It is a plant. The bottled liqueur you find in tourist shops is a 19th-century invention, and there is a serious argument among bartenders in La Paz and Todos Santos that the original margarita was built on damiana liqueur, not Cointreau, before the recipe got rewritten for the American market. That is a debate for another conversation. The tea is older than the liqueur and it is what people in Baja Sur actually drink at home.

The brew is straightforward and unforgiving. Good damiana, water just under a boil, eight minutes of steep, miel de mezquite from the desert mesquite trees that grow on the same hillsides as the damiana. That is the whole recipe. The miel matters. Mezquite honey has a smoky, woody depth that wildflower honey cannot replicate, and it is what makes this tea taste like the place it comes from. If you cannot find mezquite honey, use a good raw wildflower honey and accept the compromise. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and in Baja Sur, saber vivir includes knowing what grows on your own hillside.