Dried moringa leaf is the simplest thing we make and the one people ask about most. It is a leaf off a tree in our field, dried and nothing else. No extract, no concentrate, no additives. What follows is what is in the jar and how it gets there.

Where ours comes from

We have been growing moringa in Opp, Alabama since 2015. Every gram of moringa leaf we sell is grown right here on our own ground, which is not something most sellers can tell you. Most moringa on the American market comes in through a broker from somewhere overseas and changes hands several times before it reaches a jar. Ours does not change hands at all. We wrote about why that matters when the recalls hit, in where our moringa comes from.

The trees get cut back hard every season, which is what keeps them throwing new leaf within reach instead of running twenty feet up out of it. That cut is the whole basis of the harvest and I walked through it in how we pollard moringa trees.

What drying does to it

Moringa leaf comes off the branch wet and heavy and it will not keep that way for a day. Drying it is not a preservation step we added on the end. It is most of the work.

We strip the leaflets off the stems, dry them out of direct sun with air moving over them, and stop when they crumble under a thumb rather than bend. Heat and sunlight are the two things that will cost you the most, so we keep both off it. What you end up with is a leaf that has lost its water and kept its color. If dried moringa looks brown or khaki instead of deep green, it was dried too hot, too slow, or in the sun, and color is the first thing to go.

From there it either stays whole or it goes through the grinder. Same leaf, same field, same season, two products. Whole dried leaf is what you want for tea and for cooking, because you can see exactly what you bought. Leaf powder is the one for stirring into things, and it is our biggest seller. There is more on the processing end of it in from tree to bag.

What is in it

Moringa leaf is a green vegetable. That is the honest frame for it, and it is a more useful one than the word people usually reach for. It is eaten as an everyday food across a lot of the world, cooked into stews and sauces the way we would cook collards or turnip greens, and it has been eaten that way for a very long time before anybody in this country put it in a capsule.

Like other dark leafy greens it carries vitamins and minerals, and drying concentrates what is there by taking the water out. Beyond that we are not going to print a nutrition table we did not have run ourselves. The panel on the jar is the number we stand behind.

What we will not tell you

We sell moringa as food. We are not going to tell you it does anything to a condition you have, because we do not get to make that call and neither does anybody else selling it to you. There is research on the plant and you are welcome to go read it. We would rather point you at the field than at a study we did not run.

How we use it here

The powder goes in eggs, in soup, in anything with enough going on to carry it. It has a green, slightly peppery taste that reads a little like arugula and it does not disappear into sweet things as well as people hope, so a spoonful in a fruit smoothie will still taste like moringa. The whole leaf we brew as tea or crumble into a pot the way you would use a bay leaf, except you eat this one.

If you are new to it, start with less than you think and put it in something savory. There is more on the tree itself, how it grows and what it is, on our moringa page.

Questions about any of it, write to us at info@mayimfarm.com. We read everything that comes in.

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Talk to your doctor before using any herbal supplement, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, managing a health condition, or taking medication.