When Susan Gold blends herbs, she's not just making tea — she's making what she calls "the first medicine."

Using centuries-old recipes, Gold makes nine Native American teas for modern ailments.

"In traditional Native American cultures, tea herbs have a spiritual destiny: They are here in service to mankind," Gold said Friday at her north Ashland home, where she makes the teas. "These formulas are hundreds of years old, and some, I know, are thousands of years old. They're passed on from generation to generation."

Gold's late husband, Warren, was an herbalist and spiritual teacher who learned the tea formulas from the late Lee Nelson White Deer, an herbalist from the Lakota Nation. The two men worked as diagnosticians and natural healers in San Diego, where Gold met her husband and lived before moving to Ashland in 2005.

Two years later, Gold founded Two Moons Tea, because she wanted others to benefit from the tonics that she drank regularly, she said.

"I had been making tea for my husband's clients. Then I moved here and I had all of this herbal wisdom and I was the only one drinking the teas."

Using 72 herbs and several fruits and vegetables, Gold blends loose leaf teas in her kitchen and sells them at the Ashland Food Cooperative, Shop'n Kart and at a handful of other stores in the U.S. Customers can also place orders on her Web site, TwoMoonsTea.com. One-pound bags of tea, which make about 30 cups, cost between $7.25 and $8.25.

All of the fruits and vegetables in the teas are bought locally and are organic, Gold said. Most of the herbs come from Mountain Rose Herbs in Eugene and 70 of the 72 are organic, she said.

Types of teas

Each of the nine teas, which include an average of 15 herbs, comes from a different Native American nation or group, said Gold, who is not Native American but identifies with the traditional healing system.

The Coexistence blend, for example, uses a formula from the Seminole Nation, according to Gold. The tea is designed to act as a digestive aid and includes papaya, chamomile and peppermint, among other ingredients.

"The Seminole people had original tribal medicines and they are one of the only Native American tribes that integrated with the white settlers, so I thought the name Coexistence was a nice way to honor them and honor the tea, because it gives us that peaceful coexistence during mealtime," she said.

Gold recommends that people use three of her teas to do a seasonal cleanse, to flush out toxins in the body, she said. She advises people to alternate drinking Sun Blood, an Aztec tea designed to balance the blood; Innocence, a tonic from the Canelos Nation for the lymphatic system; and Vitality, a Tlingit Nation formula for the urinary tract.

"A lot of people try to detoxify by not eating, but the nice thing about this is you just need to eat whole foods," said Kedima Levanah, a friend of Gold's and an Ashland intuitive healer who uses the teas in her practice. "It's not an interruption in your whole lifestyle."

Gold also uses an Iroquois Nation formula to make a "caffeine alternative" brew, called Rising Sun. Alternatively, she makes a "relaxing and pain-relieving" blend named Peaceful Warrior, using an Apache Nation formula that calls for valerian root, which is also a prominent ingredient in the prescription drug Valium.

Levanah, who treats recovering alcoholics — among her other clients — has seen her patients visibly relax and become more focused after drinking the Peaceful Warrior blend, she said.

"I immediately saw the look on the people's faces change. They immediately went into a state of relaxation," she said. "They're really powerful and potent teas, and they're really helpful to my patients."

Gold's most popular tea is her Old Crow blend, which comes from several Northern tribes and is designed to be used as a respiratory aid by people with the flu, colds or similar ailments.

In addition to teas, Gold makes a bath blend, which is supposed to be prepared like tea, but poured into a bath. The sage, lavender, peppermint and other herbs help relax bathers and draw out impurities in their bodies, she said.

The business of tea

Despite the recession, Gold continues to see business increase and hopes to soon expand Two Moon Teas by making more blends and distributing in more stores, she said.

She's also teaching a few community members how to make the teas, in order to pass down the formulas, she said.

And anytime Gold has a chance to serve the tea to Native American people or share the formulas with them, she does so, she said.

"In honor of the tradition and legacy, I don't own these: They belong to the people," she said.

Staff writer Hannah Guzik can be reached at 482-3456 ext. 226 or hguzik@dailytidings.com.