Gregory Pappas’s work with Cretan pantry products began with research into olive oil and expanded into the island’s native herbs. That path led to dictamos—also known as dittany of Crete—and to mountain tea gathered in the Cretan landscape.
Dictamos grows naturally on Crete and has been associated with the island since antiquity. References to the plant appear in Greek mythology and in later accounts of Cretan herbal practice. Mountain tea belongs to a wider Greek tradition of steeping locally gathered plants as simple infusions.
The importance of these herbs is not based on a newly invented trend. It comes from the relationship between place, season, knowledge and use. Families across Greece have long prepared herbal infusions at home, while the plants themselves vary by region and altitude.
The products selected for Pappas Market are presented in that context: as agricultural ingredients with a specific origin and a documented place in Cretan tradition. Their story begins with the landscape in which they grow and with the people who continue to gather and prepare them.
Explore dictamos—dittany from Crete—in the Market.
Source and further reading: Adapted from Gregory Pappas’s account of introducing hand-harvested Cretan dictamos and mountain tea in The Pappas Post.