From the Forest to the Bottle

Every bottle you receive from me has passed through my hands many times. From the moment a plant is asked for permission in the forest, to the moment the extract is poured into the glass and the label goes on, there is no factory in between. There is a fire, a pot, a river, and a lot of patience.

My name is Alex Shatra, and this page is my way of showing you what happens before an essence reaches you. I am not going to make it sound more mystical than it is, and I am not going to make it sound more industrial than it is. I will just tell you how it is done.

Long story short

  • Grown, not only taken. We plant and propagate the master plants ourselves. Only mature plants are harvested, only what is needed, and cuttings go back into the ground.
  • Dried in the sun and the air, never in an oven. Slowly, turned by hand. Anything that dried badly is thrown away before it reaches the pot.
  • Washed before it ever touches the fire. Purity starts here, not on the label.
  • Cooked in stainless steel over wood, for hours or days. Every plant gets its own method: leaves are quick and gentle, barks and hard woods are stubborn and take far longer.
  • Excess tannins brought down in the plants that need it, because tannins are the perishable part. The plant keeps all of its qualities, only what would have spoiled the rest goes out.
  • No chemicals, no colourants, no synthetic preservatives. Just the plant, the water it was cooked in, and a small measure of natural alcohol to keep it stable.
  • Bottled fresh when you order. 30 ml, coloured glass, filled, sealed and packed by hand. Allow up to a week: that week is the work.

The long version, with the photographs, is below. It takes about five minutes.

The Long Story

From the seed in the nursery bed to the sealed bottle in your hand.

Where I learned this

I did not invent any of this. I learned it in the Amazon, inside the Shipibo tradition, from the people who have been working with these plants for far longer than anybody has been selling them. Not from a book, and not from a course. You are handed a task and you are corrected until you get it right: you cut, you carry, you wash, you sit by the pot, you diet the plant, and you listen.

That tradition is also where I was taught that a master plant is not raw material. It is somebody. You ask before you take, you take only what you need, and you never treat it as stock. What I brought back with me is not a recipe. It is a way of relating to a plant, and a pair of hands that know when an extraction is finished.

It begins long before the harvest

The first work is not cutting. The first work is planting. In the garden we grow the master plants ourselves, from seed and from cutting, so that the forest is not the only one giving. Some of these plants take years before they are mature enough to be worked with, and that waiting is part of the medicine.

Young Amazonian master plant seedlings growing in a shaded nursery bed

Young plants in the nursery bed. Everything starts here, in the shade, years before anything is harvested.

When I take from a plant, I give something back to the ground. Cuttings are propagated and replanted along the river, so that what is harvested today is replaced tomorrow. This is not a certification I bought, it is simply the only way this work can continue for more than one generation.

Amazonian plant cuttings propagated in wooden crates beside the river, replacing what was harvested

Cuttings in crates by the river, waiting to go back into the earth.

Some plants I do not cut at all. The Toe and the flower of Wachuma are watched, cared for, and visited. When they open, they open at their own hour, usually at night, and you take what they offer that night or you wait for the next one.

Toe (Brugmansia) in flower, its white trumpets open in the plant garden The sacred flower of Wachuma (San Pedro) opening at night

Toe in flower, and the flower of Wachuma, which opens only by night.

The harvest: asking, not taking

In the tradition I was taught, you do not simply arrive with a machete. You ask. You sit with the plant, you explain what you need it for, and you wait until you feel the answer. Whether you call that animism, respect or good sense, the practical result is the same: you never strip a plant, and you never take more than you can actually work with.

Freshly scraped master plant bark resting on a leaf on the Amazon forest floor beside the cut branches

Fresh bark, scraped on the spot and laid on a leaf. Only mature plants, only what is needed.

The rules I work by are simple, and they are the same ones you will find written on every product page:

  • I work together with the local indigenous communities who know these forests better than anyone.
  • Only mature plants are harvested, never young ones.
  • Only what is needed is taken, never a stock "just in case".
  • No harmful chemicals and no pesticides, at any stage.
  • Waste is reduced and the byproducts go back where they belong.
Freshly harvested bark and roots in a woven sack on the rainforest floor Freshly harvested Mucura leaves gathered in a woven sack in the Amazon

Bark and roots on the left, Mucura leaves on the right. Woven sacks, carried out on foot.

Bark, root, leaf and flower are not the same thing and are not treated the same way. Each plant gives its strength through a different part of itself, and part of the craft is knowing which part to ask for.

Drying: the slowest part, and the one nobody sees

Once the plant material comes out of the forest it has to be shredded and dried. We dry in the sun and in the air, on open racks, turning it by hand. No ovens, no forced heat. Heat is fast, but it burns off exactly what you were trying to keep.

Shredded master plant bark drying naturally in the sun on open racks

Shredded bark drying in the open air. In the Amazon humidity this can take many days.

This is also where the first selection happens. Anything that dried badly, anything that took moisture, anything that does not smell the way it should, is discarded before it ever reaches the pot. It is easier to throw away a handful of bark now than to ruin a whole extraction later.

Hands lifting a heap of dried master plant bark and roots before extraction Close up of dried master plant bark chips held in the hand for inspection A handful of dried master plant bark pieces checked by hand above the sack

Every batch is checked by hand, piece by piece, before it goes any further.

Dried well, the material can rest until it is needed. Bark, leaves and roots each keep their own colour and their own smell, and after a few years of doing this you can tell a good batch from a mediocre one with your eyes closed.

Finely shredded dried master plant bark, dried in the sun and ready for extraction Dried master plant bark, leaves and roots gathered together before the extraction begins

Cleaning: where purity actually starts

Before anything goes on the fire it is washed with clean water. Forest dust, insects, soil, whatever travelled with it out of the jungle. It sounds obvious, and it is, but it is also the step that most people skip because it is boring and it costs time.

Master plants being washed with clean water before extraction

Washing before extraction. Purity is not a claim on a label, it is this.

The extraction: fire, water, time

Now the fire. The plant material goes into the pot with water and it cooks slowly, for hours, sometimes for a full day, sometimes over more than one day. Low flame. You cannot rush it and you cannot leave it. Somebody has to sit there, watch the colour, watch the foam, feed the wood, and know when to stop.

Everything is cooked in stainless steel. It is the only metal I am willing to use for this: it does not react with the plant, it does not release anything of itself into the extract, and it can be cleaned properly between one batch and the next. No aluminium, no copper, nothing that could leave a trace behind.

Alex Shatra tending a hammered stainless steel pot over an open fire while preparing a Master Plant extract

This is me at the fire. Every extraction I sell has been cooked like this.

Not all of it happens in the forest. Part of the dried plant material is imported and the extraction is done in Europe, in exactly the same way: same pot, same fire, same hands. The plant does not change and the method does not change, only the place does. I would rather tell you than let you assume.

No two plants are extracted the same way

This is the part that cannot be industrialised, and it is where most of the craft lives. Every plant asks for its own method.

Leaves and flowers are delicate. Guayusa, Bobinsana or the flower of Wachuma give what they have quickly, so they are worked gently and for a short time. Push them harder and you cook away exactly what you were trying to keep.

Barks and hard woods are the opposite. Una de Gato, Tahuari or Shihuahuaco are stubborn and closed. They need many hours, sometimes more than one day, before they release anything at all, and they need to be shredded much finer to begin with. Roots and resins are different again.

Temperature, timing, how fine the material is cut, how many times it goes back on the fire: all of it changes from plant to plant. Doing everything one single way would be far faster and far cheaper. It would also give you a row of bottles that all look alike and do very little.

Dried master plant leaves in a steel pot on a hearth, ready for slow extraction Master plant leaves simmering in a hammered stainless steel pot over an open fire during extraction

Leaves going into the pot, and the same leaves an hour later. Short, gentle, watched.

Bundles of golden Una de Gato (Cat's Claw) bark fibres with firewood, ready for extraction Una de Gato bark strips resting in the extraction pot before cooking

Una de Gato and the firewood that will cook it. This one takes its time, and there is no way around it.

Refining and concentration

When the first cooking is done, the liquid is filtered and the plant matter is pressed and set aside. Then the liquid goes back on a low fire and the water is reduced, hour after hour, until what is left is dense, dark and concentrated. This is the part that takes the longest and looks the least impressive.

Master plant extract slowly boiling in a pot over a wood fire in the Amazon

Reduction over a wood fire. From a full pot of liquid you are left with very little.

Tannins: why some of them are taken out

With certain plants, above all the barks, part of the refining is bringing the excess tannins down. This is not about taste and it is not cosmetic. Tannins are the perishable part: they are the first thing to turn, they cloud the liquid, they drop sediment at the bottom of the bottle, and they make an extraction very difficult to keep stable over time unless you start adding things to it.

Take them down to the right level and the extract stays clean, clear and alive for far longer, by itself. Nothing else is removed. The plant keeps all of its qualities: what goes out is only the part that would have spoiled the rest, and only in the plants that actually need it.

This is also why I can say it with no asterisk: no chemicals, no colourants, no synthetic preservatives. Ever. Not in the field, not in the drying, not in the pot. What ends up in your bottle is the plant, the water it was cooked in, and the small measure of natural alcohol that keeps it safe. Nothing else.

Then everything is filtered again, and again, until nothing is left in suspension. Every extraction is smelled and tasted before it is approved. If it is not right, it does not get bottled. That has happened, and it will happen again, and it is the reason I would rather make you wait a week than send you something I am not proud of.

Once the extraction is finished and filtered, a small measured amount of natural alcohol is added, to keep mould and bacteria out and hold the liquid stable. It changes nothing else: the colour, the smell, the strength and everything the plant gave stay as they are.

Alex Shatra pouring a filtered master plant extract through a funnel into a bottle at his jungle workbench, surrounded by baskets of fresh leaves

The last pour, at the bench in the forest, with the fresh leaves still in the baskets behind.

Bottling: fresh, when you order

Here is something that makes my life harder and that I do anyway. I do not keep bottled stock sitting on a shelf. When your order arrives, I prepare your extraction fresh, just before shipping. That is why the product pages ask you to allow up to one week: that week is not a delay, it is the work.

Chuchuhuasi extract being poured by hand through a funnel into its coloured glass bottle A drop of Chiric Sanango master plant extract released from the glass dropper over the finished coloured bottle

Filling a bottle of Chuchuhuasi, and a finished Chiric Sanango. This is the last step of a journey of months.

Every bottle is a 30 ml fresh raw organic plant extraction, filled by hand, sealed, labelled with the plant it came from, and packed by me. Small batches, no production line, no third party.

The bottles are coloured glass, green or amber depending on the batch, and that is not a decoration. Light is the enemy of a living extract. Coloured glass is not transparent, so it stops the light that would degrade what is inside. Keep it closed, keep it away from sun and heat, and it will stay as it left my hands.

Why I do it this way

I could buy ready-made extracts from a supplier, put my label on them and multiply what I sell tomorrow. Many do. I would not know what is inside, I would not know which plant it really came from, and I would not know whether anyone asked permission before cutting it.

So I do it myself, from the plant to the bottle, and I accept that this puts a ceiling on how much I can make. What you are paying for is not a liquid. It is the years the plant took to grow, the day it took to cook, and the fact that somebody stayed awake next to the fire.

Where to go from here

If you want to see the plants themselves, this is where they live:

If you are not sure where to start, read the Guidelines for working with your extracts first, or have a look at the Shamanic Dieta and at the stories in Plant Wisdom.

And if you would rather ask a person than read a page, book an hour with me and we will choose together. You can also simply write to me. I answer my own messages.

May every drop carry the patience of the forest that made it.

- Alex Shatra -