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✦ Mexican Tarragon "Yauhtli" · in one breath ✦
It replenishes the Tonalli and brings colours back to the inner landscape: vivid, meaningful dreams. It brings inspiration back to the psyche that lacks it.
⊹ The path of the plant
⊹ Community voices
What the community murmurs.
Average · 88 reviews
Breakdown
Makes for an excellent delicious tea to promote winding-down or to pleasantly drift into sleep. Nurtures a relaxed yet more present state with a nearly mystical quality to it, especially when consumed in combination with German Chamomile and/or Kanna, perhaps also Mugwort.
Lockhart
Dream · 26 March 2023
A great whole body relaxing tea, add peppermint or passionflower/lemon balm and camomile for a knockout sleepy tea :)
Deko
Dream · 25 October 2024
Mexican tarragon is one of the best experiences I've ever enjoyed. it is Spicy. it has taste. the flavor lasts over time. the dizziness of well-being provides pleasure & satisfaction. really very good. thank you for these Treasures.
Cedric
Dream · 11 April 2022
It's very relaxing and makes me feel euphoric. The flavor is unique, a lemon and aniseed can. I made my grandmother taste, she even almost fell asleep and smelled good By taking this herb I see colors with my eyes closed and I dream very intensely at night. Wonderful and the quality has greatly improved. Perfect for directly calming an anxiety attack or insomnia. Thank you
Nébuleuse
Dream · 15 December 2021
As usual The same comment as last time for the same product. Very good relaxation and a can euphoric! Supe taste well pronounced and unique a lemony can / very slightly aniseed Helps to sleep. Nothing to change or report
Nébuleuse
Dream · 24 December 2021
Un goût plein de plaisir et de lumière aussi bien en infu (80°) que dans les mélanges à rêver 🙏🏽 Super qualité, envoi très soigné et plein d'attention
Frédérique Dassonville
Dream · verified purchase · 5 March 2026
A very pleasant and aniseed smell. A feeling of soothing on the digestive level. A very popular infusion.
Túyyo
Dream · 12 May 2024
The seller is full of good advice and was able to guide me according to my needs. She is a very passionate and caring person. Immediately delivered, immediately tested. This plant in infusion has a very pleasant taste. The products seem to be of quality. Thank you for the lovely gift 🙂 I would not hesitate to recommend it in order to test all these other fabulous and varied plants.
Elodie
Dream · 18 December 2023
Awesome stuff! I had wild dreams
Bruthur
Dream · 1 August 2022
Mexican tarragon mixed with the Indian Mix is my best experience on Dreams Herbs Temple. It never disappoints me. I try to pay tribute to the fellow travelers through whom I was able to discover the plants and whom I no longer see. And I try to salute the Plant And The Sacred Of The Plant Itself To make this experience a worthy, wise and honest experience. Thank you for these Treasures So Rare.
Cedric
Dream · 10 May 2022
I believe according to one of the emails of this great friend from Belgium that she really loved mexican tarragon. It doesn't surprise me. Delicious plant with taste, relaxing, euphoric, dreamlike and effective She's super happy anyway. Reliable company and ultra fast delivery even for a shipment outside France (after I do not know at all if it is even further) Thank you again! Much more than satisfied! What fun;
Nébuleuse
Dream · 24 December 2021
Really helped me recover my dreaming!
Deko
Dream · 24 December 2024
Ask the Forest about Mexican Tarragon "Yauhtli"
408 books digested, 97,512 indexed passages. She answers on lineages, synergies, cautions, ritual variations.
⊹ FREQUENT QUESTIONS ⊹
We answer.
What is Yauhtli (Mexican Tarragon)?
Yauhtli is Mexican tarragon, Tagetes lucida, an aromatic herb of the Mexican highlands. The naturalist Francisco Hernández called her 'herb of the clouds', and the Aztecs burnt her as incense for Tlaloc, god of rain. With a taste of anise and liquorice, she is drunk as a tea, smoked, and added to cacao.
Does Tagetes lucida cause hallucinations?
No alkaloid has been isolated from the genus Tagetes (Schultes, Hofmann & Rätsch). The Huichol smoke her with tobacco, a mixture said to make visions clearer (Siegel et al. 1977), data no other fieldwork has yet confirmed. In animals, studies describe calming effects. Our dreamers speak of relaxation, sleep and more vivid dreams.
Does Yauhtli give dreams?
It is what we live and what our dreamers tell us: at night, it unveils its magic through vivid, meaningful dreams. Of 12 reviews that tell of a night, 6 speak of more vivid dreams. The old sources tie her to incense, clouds and visions; dreaming does not appear in them yet.
How do I prepare a Yauhtli infusion?
About one teaspoon (1 g) of leaves in a cup of simmering water (~80 °C, not boiling), 5 to 10 minutes, then strain. The taste is of anise and liquorice, slightly sweet. The same leaves can be steeped up to 3 times.
Can you smoke Mexican tarragon?
Yes. Crumble a small amount of leaves finely into your smoking blend. Yauhtli goes with almost any smokable herb and softens the whole with her sweet notes. The Huichol smoke her too, alone or with tobacco.
Is Yauhtli a good cannabis substitute to smoke?
She is one of the best smoking substitutes for cannabis and CBD we know. Her smoke is soft, sweet, aromatic. Many use her to move away from tobacco or cannabis while keeping a pleasant gesture.
Why add Yauhtli to cacao?
We add her to ceremonial cacao: she unveils deeper levels of its magic, and she amplifies the plants she is paired with. Our original page called her a secret ingredient of the Aztec Xocoatl; we have not yet found the written source for it.
Does Yauhtli need to be fresh?
Freshness helps. Her anise scent and much of her character live in volatile essential oils, which fade with time. That is why we keep our stock turning, with a supplier in the Puebla region.
Where does INFUSE's Yauhtli come from?
From the Puebla region, in Mexico, 100% wild-harvested. Whole dried leaves, with few stems thanks to the care of our supplier's team.
Is Yauhtli legal?
Freely sold in France and the European Union.
What precautions with Yauhtli?
The estragole and methyl eugenol in her essential oil call for moderate use, in cycles, a few cups a week. Take care with an Asteraceae allergy; avoid during pregnancy and breastfeeding. One of our dreamers had an upset stomach: if that happens to you, stop.
What do people who tried Yauhtli say?
Of 88 reviews published on INFUSE, 12 tell of a night: 6 more vivid dreams, 4 better sleep, 2 meaningful dreams, 1 better recall, 1 nothing and an upset stomach. Evan: 'A gentle yet potent guide for navigating the dream time'.
⊹ Chapter · Questions ⊹
Ask, answer, share.
One question, one answer — sometimes several voices. The community answers first; INFUSE steps in when it should.
- Voix anonymeJun 20
Quelqu'un a-t-il essayé de l'utiliser avec ses clients en thérapie ?
No answer yet. You can be the first voice.
In depthbotany · phytochemistry · history
For those who want to go below the page: botany, chemistry, then four voices, each one named. ◆ what the tradition left in writing, ◇ what research has measured, ● what our dreamers tell us, ☾ what the House says.
The plant: botany
Yauhtli is Tagetes lucida Cav., a strongly aromatic perennial of the Asteraceae, the large family of marigolds, daisies and arnica. Native to Mexico and Central America, she grows on sunny highlands, in upright clumps 30 to 80 cm tall, crowned at the end of summer with dense clusters of golden flower heads. The narrow leaves are dotted with tiny oil glands that release their scent as soon as you crush them. Schultes, Hofmann and Rätsch note that she is especially abundant in Nayarit and Jalisco (Plants of the Gods, p. 58). She goes by a cloud of names: Mexican tarragon, Mexican mint marigold, sweet-scented marigold, pericón, hierbanís, hierba de las nubes; her leaves smell so clearly of anise that Mexican cooks use her in place of French tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus), a plant of another genus altogether.
Phytochemistry
Three families of molecules make up Yauhtli. An essential oil led by estragole (methyl chavicol), methyl eugenol and anethole, the same compounds that give fennel, anise and basil their sweetness. Coumarins: 6,7,8-trimethoxycoumarin, herniarin, scoparone, scopoletin. And, like the whole Tagetes genus, thiophenes, alpha-terthienyl among them. Analyses also report flavonoids (quercetin, patuletin), tannins and saponins. According to Schultes, Hofmann and Rätsch, no alkaloid has been isolated from the genus (Plants of the Gods, p. 58): her character comes from the coumarins and the essential oil, a volatile oil that fades with time.
◆ The documented tradition
The Aztecs called her yauhtli, from a Nahuatl verb meaning "to offer incense" (Siegel et al. 1977, cited by Rätsch). The naturalist Francisco Hernández, who surveyed the plants of New Spain in the 1570s, glossed her as hierba de nubes, "the herb of the clouds". She was burnt as incense for Tlaloc, lord of rain and lightning, on household and public altars alike. In the Florentine Codex, the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún records her as a medicine: the one who shivers with fever drinks her. Her powder was blown into the faces of certain prisoners destined for sacrifice, before the rite (Ortiz de Montellano 1990; Rätsch 2005).
Her story reaches back further than the Aztecs. In 2021, a team analysing miniature Maya flasks, buried in Yucatán more than a thousand years ago, found residues of Tagetes lucida mixed with two tobaccos, Nicotiana tabacum and N. rustica: the first time the plant had been detected in such vessels (Zimmermann et al., Scientific Reports, doi:10.1038/s41598-021-81158-y).
The Wixárika (Huichol), between Nayarit and Jalisco, smoke her alone or in equal parts with Nicotiana rustica; the mixture is said to make visions clearer (Siegel, Collings & Díaz 1977, Economic Botany 31:16-23). Rätsch notes that no other ethnographic fieldwork has yet confirmed these data (Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants, 2005, note 301). Among the Mixe of Oaxaca, a tea of nine flowers serves divination (Rätsch). Her cousin Tagetes erecta, the orange marigold, is the cempasúchil that carpets the altars of Día de los Muertos each year to guide the souls home.
In the written sources, the thread runs through clouds, rain, incense and visions; we have found no old text that ties Yauhtli to dreaming. Her reputation as a dream herb comes from living practice.
◇ The studies
Research on Tagetes lucida is young, and all of it is animal work. In rats, extracts showed an antidepressant-like effect in the forced-swim test at 10 to 100 mg/kg (Guadarrama-Cruz et al. 2008, Journal of Ethnopharmacology, doi:10.1016/j.jep.2008.08.013). A 2016 review gathers the evidence for her calming, tranquillising effects in rodents and points to the coumarins as the likely actors (Pérez-Ortega et al., Journal of Ethnopharmacology 181:221-8, doi:10.1016/j.jep.2016.01.040). No human study exists yet, and none has looked at dreaming.
● Our dreamers
Of 88 reviews published on INFUSE, 12 tell of a night (read one by one in September 2026; a review can say several things): 6 speak of more vivid dreams, 4 of better sleep, 2 of meaningful dreams, 1 of better recall, and 1 noticed nothing, with an upset stomach.
"A gentle yet potent guide for navigating the dream time" — Evan
"Makes for an excellent delicious tea to promote winding-down or to pleasantly drift into sleep." — Lockhart
"this herbal tea disagrees with me, upset my stomach, I'm not sure why. I thought it would help me sleep and dream better." — Zoe
☾ The House
Our own words, from the first page: "Mexican Tarragon fills us with passion, dreams, and desires." "At night, it unveils its magic through vivid, meaningful dreams." "A true Delight to smoke or drink, it is one of the best smoking substitutes for cannabis and CBD." Yauhtli is "a highly 'social herb,' fostering celebration and intimacy", and an amplifier of the plants she meets.
Estragole and freshness
Estragole and methyl eugenol, which carry the anise taste, are also found in fennel and basil. In the European Union they may not be added as such to food (Regulation 1334/2008, Annex III), and toxicology data concern doses far above an occasional cup of tea. The sensible way with Yauhtli is the same as with most herbs rich in essential oils: moderate use, in cycles, a few cups a week. Her scent lives in volatile oils, so we keep our stock turning.
Safety and legal status
Known allergy to Asteraceae (ragweed, arnica): take care. Pregnancy and breastfeeding: avoid as a principle. Moderate use in cycles suits her better than a daily cup over the long run. If she upsets your stomach, as she did for one of our dreamers, stop.
Freely sold in France and the European Union.
Sources: Schultes R.E., Hofmann A., Rätsch C., Plants of the Gods (p. 58) · Rätsch C., Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants (2005), pp. 495-503 · Ortiz de Montellano B., Aztec Medicine, Health and Nutrition (1990) · Zimmermann M. et al. 2021, Scientific Reports 11:1590 · Siegel R.K., Collings P.R., Díaz J.L. 1977, Economic Botany 31:16-23 · Guadarrama-Cruz G. et al. 2008 and Pérez-Ortega G. et al. 2016, Journal of Ethnopharmacology. Reviews: INFUSE database, September 2026.