YES!

We are one of the very, very few places online where you can purchase traditional Nymphaea Caerulea otherwise know as Egyptian Blue Lotus.

The Blue Lotus that everyone else is selling as Blue Lotus is in fact NOT the traditional Egyptian Blue Lotus that they are claiming it is. That is right, the blue lotus out there is mostly a fraud.

This was brought to our attention by the farmers that we work with in Sri Lanka. It turns out that the bright blue purple “Blue Lotus” that everyone is selling as a traditional egyptian blue lotus is in fact Nympheae Nouchali which grows very prevalently in southeastern Asia. This flower, also known as Blue Water Lily, is in fact the national flower of both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

However, this flower is not the acclaimed Sacred Egytptian Blue Lotus that was painted on tombs in Egypt and prized as a ceremonial plant for centuries. The Egyptian Blue Lotus, which goes by the latin name Nympheae Caerulea, is a completely different plant, it turns out.

The easiest way to tell the difference?

The petals of the flower are a little more elongate or not as wide as the Nouchali and the flower is bluish white. While the Nouchali flowers are bright blue purple. Nouchali definitely looks prettier. But it is not the Egyptian Blue Lotus.

Also, it turns out, that Nympheae Caerulea is much more difficult to grow as it is not nearly as prolific as the Nouchali. The Nouchali flowers tend to grow up to ten plus flowers per plant while the caerulea will sometimes only have two or three flowers per plant. So, it is much more time consuming to cultivate.

As far as their uses in traditional and sacred ceremonies, Caerulea is still the flower that is used. Although both flowers share slightly psychoactive properties, the caerulea is much more potent that the Nouchali.

The difficulty here, is that there is really no one policing the misnaming of these plants. If you go on Google or Etsy right now and search for Blue Lotus, you will find nearly hundreds of merchants selling Nyphaea Nouchali as Caerulea. But buyer be warned, most of these are selling the wrong plant incorrectly?

Why? Well, I don’t think most merchants are trying to lie. Like us, they were probably incorrectly informed by their suppliers about the correct Latin names of the. And this incorrect information may have originated all the way back at the farm where even the farmers themselves were working with incorrect information. We don’t really know.

But the good news is that we are now working with a cooperative of farmers in Sri Lanka who are carefully distinguishing between these two very different species and providing us with the correct herbs.

On our website you will see two different products – Egyptian Blue Lotus (which is not the official traditional Egyptian blue lotus) and Blue Water Lily (or Nympheae nouchali). And, you will now notice, that the blue lotus is a little bit more expensive due to its rarity.