Monarda didyma
Bee balm has a fresh citrus-mint aroma and flavor. It is a Northeast-native garden herb also known as Oswego tea.1
The name “Oswego tea” is linked to the Oswego Nation’s use of the plant for fragrant teas before early botanists documented it.2
Bee balm is also called wild bergamot because its scent recalls bergamot orange, but the two plants are unrelated: bee balm is a mint-family perennial, while the bergamot used to scent Earl Grey is a citrus fruit. Flower flavor can vary noticeably among Monarda species and cultivars.3
Scarlet bee balm is a clumping perennial with opposite, toothed leaves and showy tubular flowers arranged in a head at the top of the stem. Native Plant Trust records Monarda didyma throughout Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, where it favors moist ground and disturbed or cultivated habitats.4 In a Northeast garden it is both an herb and a perennial flower: the leaves supply most of the aromatic material, while the flowers add color and a lighter, more delicate version of the same minty-citrus character.54
The name Oswego tea points to a regional food history rather than a botanical synonym. The leaves were used for fragrant infusions associated with the Oswego region, and modern extension references also list the flowers as edible and the plant as useful for teas, jellies, soups, stews, and fruit salads.26 Because “bee balm” can refer to several Monarda species and cultivars, the scent is a better guide to the food than the flower color alone: some are lemony, some oregano-like, and some strongly minty.
Like other mint-family herbs, bee balm carries much of its aroma in tiny oil glands projecting from the leaf surface. Those exposed glands are part of the plant’s chemical defense and help explain why bruising the leaf releases scent so readily.5
Footnotes
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University of Maine Cooperative Extension, “Maine Home Garden Newsletter — May 2026,” accessed July 17, 2026. ↩
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University of Maine Cooperative Extension, “Maine Home Garden Newsletter — May 2026,” 2026. ↩ ↩2
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University of Minnesota Extension, “Edible Flowers,” accessed July 17, 2026; Smithsonian Gardens, “A Tempest in a Teapot: Alternative Plants to Traditional Tea,” accessed July 17, 2026. ↩
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Native Plant Trust, “Monarda didyma — scarlet bee-balm,” accessed September 2, 2026. ↩ ↩2
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Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, rev. ed. (Scribner, 2004), PDF p. 416. ↩ ↩2
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North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox, “Bee-balm — Monarda didyma,” accessed September 2, 2026. ↩