Buzz Button Flower (What It Is and Why Your Mouth Goes Electric)

A buzz button flower is the small olive-shaped bud of Acmella oleracea, a low plant in the daisy family. Bite one and, after a few quiet seconds, your tongue starts to fizz like Pop Rocks, your mouth fills with water and the whole front of your face feels wide awake. Bartenders use the buds as a garnish for exactly that reason. For anyone who wants the feeling on a normal Tuesday, the flowers are a problem. They are fresh, seasonal and short-lived.

What is a buzz button flower?

It's the flower head of Acmella oleracea, a plant with more nicknames than most. Wikipedia lists toothache plant, Szechuan buttons, paracress, jambu, buzz buttons, tingflowers and electric daisy. The buds are yellow, sometimes with a red centre (seed sellers call that form "Bullseye"), and about the size of a fingertip.

The plant most likely comes from a Brazilian Acmella species. In northern Brazil, especially the state of Pará, the leaves go fresh or cooked into tacacá, a hot broth sold from street stalls. The name "toothache plant" comes from the way people traditionally chewed the flower heads for sore teeth and gums, as Saveur records.

The compound behind the tingle

The buzz comes from spilanthol, a fatty acid amide that sits in the flower heads and leaves. Spilanthol is also known by a second name, affinin. Affinin also turns up in a root from Mexico, which comes up further down.

What eating one feels like

The Institute of Culinary Education ran a tasting with its students and wrote down what happened, step by step. For the first 10 seconds or so, nothing. People start asking if it's working. Then it arrives. Some tasters felt a grassy note and a rush of saliva. Some described numbness. A few couldn't find the words at all and ended up, in the school's phrase, "mumbling and drooling."

Saveur describes the buds as grassy and slightly sour, with a fizz that builds slowly and then settles into a cool, numb feeling. The saliva part is well recorded: spilanthol makes the mouth water, and the buds are known for causing a lot of it. ICE noticed that some tasters feel a lot and show nothing, while others wear every second of it on their faces.

How bartenders use the buzz button flower in drinks

The buzz button flower drink became a bar trick in the 2010s. At The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, chief mixologist Mariena Mercer built "The Verbena" (tequila, citrus and a house ginger syrup) with a buzz button on top, and Saveur reported it as the most-ordered cocktail at the hotel's Chandelier Bar. Her instruction to guests was to chew the bud first, then sip, so every flavour after it reads brighter.

Marx Foods, a Seattle supplier, lists the ways bartenders work with them, from mildest to strongest:

• Shake the petals into the drink or scatter them on top, for a light, on-and-off tingle.
• Chew a bud before the first sip, for a stronger buzz that lasts longer.
• Steep mashed buds in gin or citrus juice for at least four hours.
• Flash-infuse chopped buds into spirit in a cream whipper, resting it 5 to 10 minutes.

One detail from that guide stands out. Infused citrus juice has to be used straight away, because the electric sensation fades after a few days.

Why the flowers are hard to get

Fresh buzz buttons are a produce item. Saveur gives them about 10 to 14 days in the fridge, and the tingle fades well before the bud looks old. Restaurants buy them in packs of 30 to 120 from specialty suppliers, which is why you mostly meet them on a cocktail menu and rarely in a supermarket.

Buzz button plant and seeds

The buzz button plant is frost sensitive. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds says not to sow it until frost danger has passed, and counts 60 to 75 days from sowing to the first flowers. So buzz button flower seeds bought in autumn won't give you a single bud until well into the next warm season, and the plant stops flowering when the cold comes back.

So the feeling stays tied to a summer garden or a bar that stocks the buds that week.

The same compound, in a root from Central Mexico

Chilcuague (Heliopsis longipes) is a different plant from the same daisy family. It grows in the Sierra Gorda of Central Mexico, across Guanajuato, Querétaro and San Luis Potosí, and people there call it golden root, raíz de oro. Its root carries affinin, the same compound as spilanthol, measured by HPLC at 6.9 to 8.5 mg per gram of root. Mexican ethnobotanists (Cilia-López and colleagues) record the root chewed and used as a spice, held against the gums and soaked in alcohol. For more on the plant itself, read our full guide to chilcuague, Mexico's golden root.

Dragon Breath is that root as an extract in a 50 ml mouth spray. One spray and within about 10 seconds a bright, electric buzz spreads across the tongue and mouth. It tastes earthy and a little peppery for a second, then the tingle takes over. Your mouth floods. Then a clean, fresh feeling lingers, and you come out of it switched on for whatever is next: a call, a set at the gym, the second half of a long drive.

In one reaction video, a customer's first words after a single spray were "Oh wow, the saliva flow."

The spray answers every problem the flower has. It lives in your pocket. A few sprays is all it takes, and one bottle holds 250+ sprays. The extract sits sealed in Miron violet glass, which keeps light and air off it and holds the quality and strength of the extract for far longer than a bud that loses its fizz in under two weeks. No growing season, and no hoping the bar has them in this week.

Dragon Breath – Chilcuague Extract

50 ml mouth spray. Wild-harvested chilcuague root, dual-extracted. 250+ sprays.

Add to bag

Buzz button flower where to buy, or how to skip the hunt

Fresh buds come and go with growers and seasons. The root is wild-harvested from growth zones the Mara team selects with the help of local elders, then dual-extracted in organic solutions. Start with one spray. Once you know the feeling, go up to five. Dragon Breath is vegan, gluten free, sugar free and non-GMO.

If the Acmella side of the story interests you, our post on spilanthes tincture covers the extract made from the buzz button plant itself.

Dragon Breath considerations

The recommendation on the product page: "If you're pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or allergic to plants in the daisy family, ask your doctor before using it."

Questions people ask

Are buzz buttons and Szechuan buttons the same thing?

Yes. Szechuan buttons, buzz buttons, electric daisy, toothache plant and jambu are all names for Acmella oleracea.

How long does the buzz last?

Tasters at the Institute of Culinary Education described a slow start of about 10 seconds and a long finish. Dragon Breath's buzz arrives within about 10 seconds of a spray.

What does a buzz button taste like?

Grassy and a little sour at first, then the fizz takes over and the mouth waters. The flavour is mild; people eat them for the sensation.

Is chilcuague the same plant as the buzz button flower?

No. Chilcuague is Heliopsis longipes, a root from Central Mexico. It carries affinin, which is the same compound as the spilanthol in buzz buttons, so the two give a closely related tingle.