Thyme

Thyme is a culinary herb made from the dried above-ground parts of certain plants in the *Thymus* genus, which belongs to the mint family. These plants are originally from Mediterranean regions in North Africa, the Levant, and Southern Europe, and they are used for cooking, medicine, and decoration.

Wild thyme likely first grew in the Levant, where it may have been cultivated. Ancient Egyptians used common thyme for embalming, while ancient Greeks added it to baths and burned it as incense in temples, thinking it brought courage. The Romans are thought to have spread thyme across Europe, using it to freshen rooms and flavor cheese and liqueurs. During the Middle Ages, people placed thyme under pillows to help sleep and prevent nightmares, and women gave thyme leaves to knights as gifts for courage. It was also burned as incense and put on coffins at funerals to aid the journey to the afterlife. The fish genus *Thymallus*, named by Carl Linnaeus for the grayling, gets its name from the faint thyme-like smell of its flesh.

Thyme grows best in hot, sunny spots with well-drained soil. Planted in spring, it becomes a perennial and can be grown from seed, cuttings, or divided roots. It handles drought well and can be pruned after flowering to prevent woodiness.

In cooking, thyme is a key part of bouquet garni and herbes de Provence. It is sold fresh or dried. Fresh thyme is more flavorful but lasts less than a week, though freezing can keep it for months. It dries better than many herbs. Fresh thyme is sold in bunches of sprigs, each stem with paired leaves spaced about half an inch to an inch apart. Recipes may measure it by bunch, sprig, or spoonful. Whole sprigs can be used, or leaves can be stripped from the stems. Dried thyme works as a substitute, and in Armenia it is used in tisanes.

Thyme’s chemical makeup includes essential oils, flavonoids, phenolic acids, triterpenes, and other compounds. Key essential oils are thymol (which gives antiseptic properties), carvacrol, p-cymene, γ-terpinene, linalool, and 1,8-cineole. Thymol is the most abundant volatile in thyme leaves, at 8.55 mg/g. It has been used as an antibiotic and antiseptic in traditional medicine, and oil of thyme contains 20–54% thymol, an ingredient in mouthwashes like Listerine. Flavonoids include luteolin-7-O-glucoside (an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory), apigenin, quercetin, and kaempferol. Phenolic acids such as rosmarinic acid (antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial), caffeic acid, and chlorogenic acid are also present. Triterpenes like oleanolic and ursolic acid add health benefits, and tannins give astringent properties, along with saponins and other minor compounds.

Important species and cultivars include: *Thymus citriodorus* (lemon, orange, and lime thymes); *Thymus herba-barona* (caraway thyme, with a strong caraway scent from carvone, used in cooking and as ground cover); *Thymus praecox* (mother of thyme, grown ornamentally and used in Iceland for cooking and tea); *Thymus pseudolanuginosus* (woolly thyme, non-culinary, used as ground cover); *Thymus serpyllum* (wild or creeping thyme, a key nectar source for honeybees, especially in southern Europe and North Africa, and a caterpillar food plant for large and common blue butterflies); and *Thymus vulgaris* (common thyme, a Mediterranean perennial used widely in cooking, suited to well-drained soils).