Rooted in tradition. Crafted in Bath.

How it began

I grew up in Poland, foraging with my family every autumn - wild mushrooms, hedgerow berries, plants whose names I learned before I learned much else. My grandmother turned what we found into tinctures and remedies: amber stones steeped for their warmth, nettles for their iron, elderberries for the cold months ahead. I didn't think of it as anything special at the time. It was just what autumn was for.

That early education ended up taking me somewhere I didn't expect. I studied environmental pollution in Hamburg, hoping eventually to work on protecting the waters around Mallorca. Instead, a stopover in England turned into something longer — I fell for the countryside, and stayed. For more than a decade I taught maths in Steiner/Waldorf schools here, drawn to their holistic, hands-on approach to learning.

Coming back to it

The pull toward plants never really left, though. I started practising yoga, looking for something steadier than the pace of daily life. And it was while foraging elderberries in the English countryside - a habit I'd picked back up almost without noticing -  that everything from my childhood came rushing back: the smell of the berries, the quiet of being out picking them, my grandmother's kitchen. I knew I wanted to make something of it again.

That's how Bloomfield Botanicals started - small batches of elderberry syrup, made the way I'd grown up watching it made, with organic ingredients and no shortcuts. The range has grown since: fire ciders, oxymels, a tincture, an elderflower liqueur named after the beetles I keep finding tucked in the blossoms. The method hasn't changed. Everything is still hand-crafted here in Bath, in small enough batches that I can taste-test as I go.