Lavender is a fragrant herb from the mint family, used for centuries in teas, cooking, cosmetics and sachets. This category covers culinary and infusion-grade dried lavender — the sort you buy by the gram for brewing, baking or blending, not garden plants or essential oils. Azarius has stocked botanicals since 1999, so if you're looking to buy loose dried lavender for the kitchen or the teapot, you're in the right aisle.
Buy Dried Lavender — What This Category Covers
Dried lavender flowers (Lavandula angustifolia) are the harvested, cured buds of the plant — sold loose, by weight, ready to steep or cook with. That's different from three adjacent formats you'll see elsewhere in the shop, and the distinction matters before you order:
| Format | What it is | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Dried flowers (this category) | Whole cured buds, loose | Tea, baking, sachets, bath soaks |
| Essential oil | Steam-distilled concentrate | Aromatherapy, diffusers, topical blends |
| Hydrosol / floral water | Distillation by-product | Skincare, light room spray |
| Live plant / seeds | Growing stock | Garden, windowsill |
If you want to drink it, bake with it, or tuck it into a drawer — dried flowers are what you want. If you want to diffuse it, you want the oil. Don't drink the essential oil, and don't try to brew tea from potpourri-grade stuff sold for crafts (often dyed or scented).
Types of Lavender Worth Knowing
Not all lavender tastes the same. There are roughly 45 recognised species in the Lavandula genus, but four show up in commerce:
- English lavender (L. angustifolia) — the culinary standard. Sweet, floral, low camphor. This is what you want for tea, shortbread and lemonade.
- Lavandin (L. x intermedia) — a hybrid, higher yield, sharper and more camphor-heavy. Common in soap and cleaning products. We'd skip it for the teapot.
- Spanish lavender (L. stoechas) — pinecone-shaped flowers, more medicinal flavour, mostly ornamental.
- French lavender (L. dentata) — toothed leaves, mild scent, rarely used culinarily.
The one we stock is English lavender, which accounts for the vast majority of food-grade dried lavender sold in Europe — and for good reason. It's the only one that plays nicely in a cup.
What We Carry
Right now this category holds a single product: loose dried Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) in a 20-gram pack — enough for roughly 40 cups of tea or a good stack of baking. If you want to order lavender for a specific recipe or to try infusing honey, vinegar or sugar, that's your starting point.
How to Choose and Use Dried Lavender
Start small. Lavender is one of those herbs where a teaspoon too many turns your tea into soap water. For a cup of infusion, a pinch (roughly half a teaspoon of dried buds) steeped for 4–5 minutes is plenty. For baking, grind it fine and treat it like a strong spice — a little goes a long way, and it pairs beautifully with lemon, honey, vanilla and dark berries.
Storage is simple: airtight jar, away from light and heat. Properly stored dried lavender holds its aroma for 12–18 months; after that it fades into hay. If you can't smell it when you open the jar, it won't taste of anything either — time to replace it.
Building a tea cabinet? Have a look at our wider dried herbs and botanicals section for chamomile, damiana, passionflower and the rest.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you make tea from any dried lavender?
No — only food-grade dried English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia). Craft-shop lavender is often dyed, fumigated or mixed with lavandin, which tastes sharply of camphor. Buy it from a shop that sells it for consumption, not decoration.
What's the difference between lavender tea and lavender essential oil?
Tea uses whole dried flowers steeped in hot water — gentle, drinkable, food-safe. Essential oil is a highly concentrated steam distillate meant for diffusion or diluted topical use, never ingestion. One 20g pack of flowers and a 10ml bottle of oil are completely different products.
Does dried lavender go off?
It doesn't spoil in a dangerous sense, but it loses its oils and aroma over time. Expect 12–18 months of good flavour in an airtight jar out of sunlight. Sniff test: if the jar smells of nothing, the tea will too.
Can I cook with lavender the same way as rosemary?
Roughly, yes — they're both aromatic Mediterranean herbs — but lavender is far more floral and much easier to overdo. Use half what you'd use of rosemary, grind it finer, and lean towards sweet applications (shortbread, scones, syrups) rather than savoury roasts.
Last updated: April 2026