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INFUSION - aka TISANE - A beverage made like a tea. Boiling water is added
to plant material, then allowed to sit and steep, extracting active
ingredients.

DECOCTION - Hard materials such as roots, wood, bark, and seeds generally
require boiling to extract active ingredients.  This method also works to
extract mineral salts and bitter principals.  This method extracts active
principals of harder plant matter,(roots, bark, seeds, seed pods, etc.) and
renders toxic substances less toxic, thus safer to use.

Christianna

> > Decoction =
> > Digby (1669) White metheglin of my Lady Hungerford - This Proportion of
> > Herbs is to make six Gallons of Decoction... take the clear Decoction
> > (leaving the settlings)...
>
> In this case, an infusion, like tea. Later recipes (primarily for German
> beer, I believe) seem to distinguish between decoction as a means of
> temperature control by adding measured amounts of boiling liquid to
> measured amounts of other stuff, and infusion, which is a less
> sophisticated method of adding a semi-measured amount of boiling water
> to a measured amount of room-temp stuff to achieve a median "strike"
> temperature which you then insulate with blankets and such. But Digby
> seems to be making six gallons of herb tea and using that in his mead,
> so in this case, it looks like a pretty simple infusion.
>
> Adamantius