Oregano

Warm, spicy and dry-herbal, like mountain herbs heated by the midday sun, with a faintly phenolic, almost smoky sharpness.

• The name derives from Greek oros (mountain) and ganos (brightness, ornament) and is usually rendered as “joy of the mountains”.

In commercial oregano oils the spicy, phenolic carvacrol dominates at around 60–85 %, while thymol usually accounts for only a few percent; depending on chemotype, wild populations can be almost free of both phenols.