Having passing several villages on pebbly roads and lots of beautiful scenery, we arrived at the village of Siklód. Looked at from the top of a nearby church tower, the village looked like houses, which had been spread around haphazardly between hills and deciduous groves. Having arrived, we had to ascend a rather steep and curvy road in order to arrive at the house of Dávid Balazs and his family.
In fact, we drove so far on more or less bad road because Mr. Balazs has worked as a herbalist in his spare time for many years and he has good results, having cured quite many. He has always been hiking and collecting herbs in forests, he has read a lot about herbs, he has cured his own kidney problems, he cured his daughter when she was ill with inflammation and he cured his son of asthma by means of herbal teas. When he had cured his son, his friends asked him to make herbal teas for them as well and, gradually, he started thinking about founding a company. Moreover, his grandmother was a herbalist, his grandfather was a healer, using herbal creams, and his mother-in-law was a herbalist such that he didn’t started from scratch.
He started 4-5 years ago with herbal teas, making combinations of 5-6 types of herbs because the effects cancel each other out if he adds more types. He wasn’t registered the first 2 years, but he got registered the third year after having completed much paperwork and a complex procedure. Now, he is certified and he can sell his products anywhere and his dream is to cure other people with herbs. He has 3 employees for collecting, sorting and mixing, while he does marketing and selling himself. He has a Facebook page, which he finds useful. He’s going to farmer’s markets where he speaks to many people even though he sells little, and he has one free weekend a month. He hasn’t decided if should quit his bank job or not.
Each mixture of herbs is meant to cure or alleviate a part of the body or a specific disease:
He also makes herbal creams in order to cure or at least alleviate the following:
Other products include:
together with strong essences based on:
Dávid has not decided if he should expand the product range or not, but he won’t expand the range for now. He’s only collecting herbs from forests in the vicinity of where he lives because a large variety of herbs grow in this area and he’s always aiming for making products of the highest quality.
Regarding feedback from customers, he was interviewed by a radio station in Hungary. Afterwards, an old man with eye problems called him, and Mr. Balazs sent him herbal tea. He got cured, then he came to Mr. Balazs’ place and bought a lot of herbal tea. He has also got feedback from people with liver diseases and respiratory diseases and it seems like about 1 of 3 are cured or at least get better after 3 months drinking 3 cups of herbal tea daily.
There are large meadows and deciduous forests around the village of Siklód and we followed Mr. Balazs on a herb-collecting hike. In addition to wearing an apron with lots of pockets, he always had a pair of hand pruners ready to cut some herbs and put them in one of his many pockets. He flitted from one group of herbs to another one, always cutting them carefully and leaving at least half, seemingly never hesitating which herbs he should collect. When we returned to the village, where we had a beer at the only place selling it, then sitting outside we could watch the daily procession of cows and goats returning from grazing a local meadow before going home to their owners in order to be milked.
Having got home, Mr. Balazs used a special kind of tool in order to cut up the herbs, then laying them on a coarse netting surrounded by a wooden frame. Finally, he inserted the frame into a solar oven, through which hot air would flow and dry the herbs quickly the next morning.
Next, my guide made a wonderful goulash, which felt like the end of a fantastic holiday.
If somebody wants to make their own goulash, here is a recipe.
