Caraway

Carum carvi L. was published by Linnaeus in Species Plantarum in 1753 and belongs to Apiaceae (Umbelliferae), the carrot family. World Flora Online, which draws on Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants (the dataset behind Kew’s Plants of the World Online), accepts the name and lists synonyms including Apium carvi (L.) Crantz, Bunium carvi (L.) M.Bieb., Carum aromaticum Salisb., and Aegopodium carum Wibel. Its native range is enormous: Europe from Scandinavia south to Spain, Italy, and the Balkans, then east through the Caucasus, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Siberia, the Russian Far East, Mongolia, and China (including Tibet and Xinjiang) to the Himalaya, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. It is recorded as introduced in North Africa, Great Britain, Ireland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, North America, and Greenland. The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) treats it as an archaeophyte in Britain, an ancient introduction present by medieval times, and notes that its true native range is “obscured by spread in cultivation.” Grieve already recorded it as naturalized in Britain and growing wild in Canada and the United States.

Caraway is usually described as a biennial; BSBI calls it a monocarpic perennial, meaning it flowers once and then dies. Grieve describes its leaves as finely cut, and the Flora of China (via World Flora Online) gives its tapering taproot as up to 25 cm long. Grieve noted that the young roots are edible, and that the herbalist John Parkinson thought them superior in flavor to parsnips. In the second year smooth, furrowed stems rise to about 15–70 cm, occasionally 150 cm, and carry flat umbels of small white or pinkish flowers, which Grieve says open in June. The fruit, a cremocarp, splits when ripe into two mericarps. Each half is the “seed” of commerce: about 3–5 mm long, slightly curved, and marked with five pale ridges. King’s American Dispensatory (1898) adds that each mericarp holds six oil tubes. Grieve recorded that caraway was grown commercially in only a few areas, with the Netherlands producing the main crop from about 20,000 acres. In Britain it has become rare in the wild and is listed as Endangered on the Great Britain Red List (BSBI).

EMA’s assessment report gives the chemistry. Dried caraway fruit contains 3–7% essential oil, 10–18% fixed oil rich in petroselinic acid, and about 20% protein, and the European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.) requires whole fruit to yield at least 30 ml of essential oil per kilogram. In the Ph. Eur. specification for caraway oil, carvone makes up 50–65% and limonene 30–45%. The carvone is the (S)-(+) form, also called d-carvone (PubChem CID 16724, C10H14O), and the limonene is (R)-(+)-limonene (CID 440917, C10H16). Spearmint oil is dominated by the mirror-image molecule, (R)-(−)-carvone, which is why the two plants share a compound but not a smell. Caraway is easily confused with other plants. The Herb Society of America notes that its fruit resembles cumin (Cuminum cyminum), another Apiaceae spice, and that in Persia caraway has been called Persian cumin. US food regulations list “caraway, black (black cumin)” and “cumin, black (black caraway)” as names for Nigella sativa, the unrelated buttercup-family plant this site covers as black seed. Only the botanical name Carum carvi identifies true caraway.

Caraway is one of the oldest spices in Europe. EMA’s assessment report, citing Johri (Pharmacognosy Reviews 2011), calls it one of the earliest cultivated herbs in Asia, Africa, and Europe, and the Herb Society of America traces its use back about 5,000 years to Stone Age lake dwellings in Switzerland. Grieve explains that the name probably comes from the Arabic Karawya, the origin of both the English caraway and the Latin carvi, though Pliny claimed the plant was named for Caria in Asia Minor, where he believed it had originally been found; in old Spanish it was alcaravea. She records that Dioscorides advised the oil for pale-faced girls, and repeats a story that the edible roots, mixed with milk and made into bread, were the chara eaten by Julius Caesar’s soldiers. BSBI’s classification of caraway as an archaeophyte, established in Britain by medieval times, fits Grieve’s statement that it was very popular in the Middle Ages and in Shakespeare’s day.

Caraway became a fixture of northern European cooking. Parkinson wrote that the seed was put among baked fruit and into bread and cakes, and made into comfits, sugar-coated seeds “taken for cold or wind in the body” (Grieve). In Henry IV, Justice Shallow invites Falstaff to “a pippin and a dish of caraways,” and Grieve reports that roast apples were still served with a saucer of caraway at Trinity College, Cambridge, and that Scots dipped buttered bread into a saucer of the seeds. German peasants flavored cheese, cabbage, soups, and bread with it. The Herb Society of America credits caraway with giving rye bread its distinctive flavor and lists sauerkraut, sausages, and cheeses among its classic uses. Caraway also flavors spirits: European Union rules define kümmel as a caraway-flavored spirit of at least 30% alcohol, and aquavit as a spirit flavored with distillates of caraway and/or dill seed. Grieve also records superstitions that caraway prevented theft, kept lovers faithful, and stopped pigeons from straying.

Medically, caraway was a carminative, a remedy to relieve wind. Grieve gave 1 to 4 drops of the oil on a lump of sugar for flatulent indigestion and called distilled caraway water “a useful remedy in the flatulent colic of infants” and an excellent vehicle for children’s medicine. King’s American Dispensatory (1898) used it for flatulent colic, “especially of children,” at doses of 10 to 60 grains of the seeds. Germany’s Commission E later set adult doses of 1.5–6 g of fruit or 3–6 drops of oil a day (EMA). EMA records caraway tea on the German market since 1976, along with an ointment containing 2% caraway oil for rubbing on the abdomen. Its herbal committee adopted European monographs on caraway fruit and caraway oil on 7 July 2015, reviewed them in 2020, and again in November 2025 found no new data that would justify a revision. Meanwhile, from the 1990s, German researchers tested caraway oil combined with peppermint oil as a capsule for chronic indigestion.

The best-supported mechanism is relaxation of gut muscle. EMA’s assessment report summarizes older laboratory work in which caraway oil and extracts relieved spasm in strips of guinea-pig intestine. More relevant is a study by Krueger and colleagues (2020), summarized in EMA’s 2020 addendum, in which both caraway oil and peppermint oil relaxed muscle from human intestine removed at surgery, apparently by blocking L-type calcium channels, the same channels many smooth-muscle relaxants target. In eight healthy volunteers, the peppermint–caraway combination reduced the strength of contractions in the stomach and duodenum (Micklefield and colleagues 2003, cited by EMA), and the Carmenthin prescribing information describes a motility-inhibiting effect on the duodenum. These findings fit the traditional idea that caraway eases cramping and trapped wind, but they do not show how much a cup of caraway tea delivers to the gut wall. The Carmenthin prescribing information notes that carvone from the combination capsule is absorbed and has a half-life of about 2.5 hours.

Caraway also affects the gallbladder, and this underlies its main safety warning. Goerg and Spilker (Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics 2003) tested 90 mg of peppermint oil, 50 mg of caraway oil, placebo, and two comparison drugs in 12 healthy volunteers, using ultrasound to watch the stomach and gallbladder empty. Both oils caused complete inhibition of gallbladder emptying, while caraway oil did not significantly change stomach emptying or the time for a meal to travel from mouth to colon. That is why EMA advises against medicinal caraway in people with gallstones, inflammation of the bile ducts, other biliary disorders, or liver disease, and why the same warnings appear on peppermint–caraway products. EMA also lists achlorhydria, a lack of stomach acid, among the conditions where use is not recommended. The peppermint monograph on this site describes similar gallbladder cautions for peppermint oil, so the warnings add up rather than cancel out when the two oils are combined.

Animal studies hint at broader effects, but none has been confirmed in people. EMA’s assessment report describes caraway extracts reducing experimental colitis and stomach lesions in rats, studies in diabetic rats, and estrogen-like effects in female rats given at least 200 mg/kg of extract for 30 days. A 2015 open-label crossover trial in 48 people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) tested warm caraway oil poultices on the abdomen; they helped more than unheated olive oil compresses but not more than heated olive oil, suggesting the warmth may explain much of the effect (Lauche and colleagues, Digestion 2015, cited by EMA). Combination capsules are designed to protect the oils from stomach acid: Menthacarin is enteric-coated, and FDgard uses microspheres meant to release caraway oil and L-menthol in the duodenum. The trials therefore test a specific delivery system, which is one reason their results cannot simply be transferred to caraway tea or to caraway eaten in food.

Bloating and flatulence are caraway’s officially recognized uses. EMA’s 2015 monographs accept caraway fruit tea for adolescents and adults and swallowed caraway oil for adults as traditional herbal medicines for the symptomatic relief of digestive disorders such as bloating and flatulence, “exclusively based upon long-standing use.” The oil monograph also allows a 2% caraway oil ointment, applied once a day as a thin layer on the abdomen, for all ages from infancy. EMA’s assessment report found no clinical trials of adequate quality on caraway on its own, and its 2020 and 2025 reviews found nothing that justified changing that. In practice, this means caraway alone sits in the same evidence tier as fennel or chamomile tea for wind: plausible, long used, and low-risk at food-like doses, but not proven in controlled trials. Its modern evidence comes almost entirely from products that pair it with peppermint, which has its own strong evidence for IBS.

Functional dyspepsia has the most data, all for the peppermint–caraway combination Menthacarin (90 mg peppermint oil and 50 mg caraway oil per enteric-coated capsule, one capsule twice a day). May and colleagues tested it against placebo for four weeks in 45 patients (39 analyzed; Arzneimittelforschung 1996) and in 96 patients (Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics 2000); in the larger trial, pain fell by 40% versus 22% and investigators judged 67% versus 21% of patients much or very much improved. Rich and colleagues (Neurogastroenterology and Motility 2017) randomized 114 outpatients; after four weeks, pain scores improved by 7.6 points versus 3.4 with placebo. In a 120-patient trial, Madisch and colleagues (Arzneimittelforschung 1999) found it equivalent to cisapride, a prokinetic drug since withdrawn or restricted in many countries. Madisch and colleagues’ 2023 meta-analysis of the three placebo-controlled trials (249 patients) found a large pooled reduction in pain and a 2.65-fold higher chance of global improvement. The meta-analysis was funded by the manufacturer, Schwabe, two authors were its employees, and the others had received its honoraria.

For irritable bowel syndrome the combination evidence is thinner. The 2023 meta-analysis describes a 200-patient placebo-controlled IBS trial of Menthacarin, published only as a congress abstract, in which symptoms improved but the difference from placebo did not reach statistical significance, plus favorable analyses of functional dyspepsia patients who also had IBS symptoms. The authors call Menthacarin a “promising option” for IBS symptoms, which is a weaker claim than for indigestion. For IBS itself, enteric-coated peppermint oil alone has much more evidence; see the peppermint monograph. The FDgard trial is a useful reminder that not every caraway product performs well. Chey and colleagues (Clinical and Translational Gastroenterology 2019) randomized 95 adults with functional dyspepsia, who could keep taking their usual medicines, to capsules of 25 mg caraway oil plus 20.75 mg L-menthol (two capsules twice a day) or placebo. The overall symptom score did not differ significantly between groups at two or four weeks. Postprandial distress symptoms (fullness and early satiety) improved more at 24 hours, and in the subgroup with more severe symptoms about three-quarters versus half had substantial global improvement. The trial was funded by the manufacturer.

Caraway is also a minor ingredient of STW 5, sold as Iberogast. According to Bayer’s product information, Iberogast Classic combines extracts of nine herbs, with caraway fruit making up 10 ml per 100 ml alongside bitter candytuft, angelica root, chamomile, milk thistle, lemon balm, peppermint, licorice, and greater celandine, while Iberogast Advance contains six herbs, with caraway at 20 ml per 100 ml and no greater celandine. Both are licensed in Germany for functional stomach and bowel disorders such as functional dyspepsia and IBS. Melzer and colleagues (Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics 2004) pooled three placebo-controlled STW 5 trials with 273 patients and found it more effective than placebo for the most bothersome symptom, but that result belongs to the whole formula. Caraway’s contribution to either product has not been tested separately. Caraway has also been suggested as a galactogogue, an herb to boost breast milk, but LactMed, the US government database on medicines in breastfeeding, says no scientifically valid clinical trials support this use.

Tea is the traditional form. EMA’s fruit monograph gives 0.5–2 g of whole or crushed caraway fruit infused in 150 ml of boiling water, one to three times a day, for adolescents from 12, adults, and older people; Commission E’s older range was 1.5–6 g a day (EMA). Crushing the fruits just before use releases more oil, which is why the monograph includes “comminuted” (crushed) fruit. Grieve gives an old cold-water method for infants, a “caraway julep” made by steeping an ounce of bruised seeds in a pint of cold water for six hours, but EMA does not support any oral caraway preparation for children under 12. Caraway is often blended with fennel and anise in German “fennel–anise–caraway” teas; EMA notes that d-carvone has been detected in breast milk after mothers drank such a tea. If symptoms last longer than two weeks or worsen, EMA advises seeing a doctor or qualified practitioner rather than simply continuing the tea.

Caraway essential oil is a concentrate. EMA’s oil monograph allows adults 0.15–0.3 ml a day by mouth, divided into one to three doses, and does not recommend swallowed oil for anyone under 18. For the skin, it allows 2% caraway oil in an ointment or cream, applied once a day as a thin layer over the abdomen, from infancy upward, but not on broken skin, around the eyes, or on mucous membranes. Do not take undiluted oil or put it on babies’ skin unless it is in a properly made 2% product. The Carmenthin prescribing information warns that large amounts of essential oils can cause poisoning, with small children especially vulnerable; signs include vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, drowsiness, and, in severe cases, seizures and breathing problems. Keep bottles of essential oil out of children’s reach.

Finished products are dosed differently. Carmenthin capsules (90 mg peppermint oil and 50 mg caraway oil) are taken one capsule twice a day by adults and adolescents from 12, swallowed whole at least 30 minutes before a meal, ideally morning and midday, according to its German prescribing information. In the FDgard trial, the dose was two capsules twice a day, and the product is now sold in the United States as a dietary supplement; Nestlé’s medical product site lists it for meal-triggered indigestion. Iberogast is a liquid taken as drops and contains 240 mg of alcohol per 20 drops (Bayer). Caraway in the kitchen is food rather than medicine: a teaspoon in rye bread, coleslaw, or sauerkraut delivers far less oil than a medicinal dose. When buying caraway as a remedy, check for the Latin name Carum carvi, since “black caraway” and “black cumin” usually mean Nigella sativa.