Mountain tea, traditionally used by all Albanian families, especially during winter, is on the verge of extinction.
The alarm was raised by botanist Jani Vangjeli, who brings a 950-page long study about the Albanian Flora, which comes in the shape of an Atlas, for the first time.
“The Mountain Tea is found very rarely in the Polis mountain. It used to create the entire background imagery in that area, now it’s to the verge of extinction. The tea sold by farmers is not grown on mountains. It is cultivated, and it doesn’t have its natural aroma. The reason is that pickers don’t cut just the branches, but they uproot them completely and take them home”, Vangjeli said.
The Atlas of the Albanian Flora is a voluminous study with 1700 spontaneous and cultivated species found in Albania since 1935, with the distribution map for every species.
There are other plants at risk of distinction, which are very specific to our geography, such as Gentiana, a medical plant with very good qualities; Quercus Robur; basani and the Dukagjin Violet.
Preparing this Atlas too 10 years for Vangjeli, but he will not stop. He is working for the second volume of this Atlas, which will include 1800 other species.
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