Wild lettuce: the bitter herb people ask us about most

Wild lettuce is Lactuca virosa (and its close relative Lactuca serriola), a tall bitter plant in the same family as the lettuce in your salad. When the stem is cut it bleeds a milky white latex the old herbalists called lactucarium.

That latex is why the plant picked up the nickname 'opium lettuce' in 19th-century pharmacy texts. It contains no opiates. The name stuck because the dried latex was sold as a bitter sedative-tasting preparation, not because of any chemical relationship.

Traditionally wild lettuce was taken in the evening — as a bitter tea, a tincture, or the dried latex — by people looking for a settling, end-of-day herb. It shows up in old European and American folk material as a nervine and a calming bitter.

We don't make medical claims about it and neither should anyone selling it to you. If a shop tells you wild lettuce is a painkiller, walk out. What's true is that it is bitter, traditional, and widely used at night.

• ●Dried leaf: mildest. Brewed as a tea, usually one heaped teaspoon steeped covered for 10 to 15 minutes. Genuinely bitter — most people blend it with chamomile or a mild tea they already like.
• ●Tincture: stronger and much easier to dose consistently. Taken by the dropperful in water, usually in the evening.
• ●Latex/resin extract: the traditional concentrated form. Rarely worth it for a first-timer.

We carry the dried leaf loose because it's the form we can vouch for by sight and smell.

The pattern we see most in the shop is simple: an evening cup, an hour before bed, a few nights a week rather than every night.

It's bitter. Properly bitter — the kind of bitter that makes a face. That bitterness is part of why it was valued: bitters stimulate digestion, and a bitter evening tea does more than one job.

If you can't get it down straight, blend it with chamomile, tila, or a little date sugar. Don't drown it in sweetener; you lose the bitter action that makes it worth drinking.

Avoid wild lettuce if you are pregnant or nursing. Talk to your doctor first if you take sedatives, sleep medication, antidepressants, or blood-pressure medication, or if you have glaucoma or an enlarged prostate — traditional texts flag both.

Too much of it makes people queasy. That's the plant telling you the dose was wrong, not that it's working.

We sell wild lettuce leaf loose by weight online and at both Chicago counters. If you're local and unsure, come in and we'll brew you the honest version of what it tastes like before you commit to a bag.