Tinctures for stress and anxiety available at Farmacopia, an herbal apothecary Friday, March 20, 2026 in Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Santa Rosa is home to an herbal oasis that is full of remedies, life-changing information and a low-cost clinic hosting a wide range of practitioners. Farmacopia has been around since 1999 but it has grown from a tiny corner business to an impressive apothecary that serves its community well.
Clinical herbalist and certified nutrition specialist Lily Mazzarella came on as manager in 2007 and then purchased Farmacopia in 2010.
“I’ve been there for almost 20 years, and it was a very different incarnation then,” said Mazzarella. “I have to say I loved the name and I wanted to keep it, so hence the continuity. It’s such a good name.”
Like many herbalists, Mazzarella remembers hints of herbal lore from childhood and her grandmothers who had immigrated to the U.S. from Italy and Estonia. In their old country cultures they had been used to incorporating different beneficial plants into their diet and health practices.
Her Estonian grandmother lived in Lakewood, New Jersey, in a very large Estonian immigrant community and Mazzarella remembers the saunas in their backyards.
“In the saunas these Estonian women would be whacking each other with birch branches, to get the lymphs flowing,” she said. “I remember watching all of this as a young child and being like, wow, what is happening here?”
She also remembers the wonderful aromas from inside their houses and their gardens. Her Italian grandmother grew an herb called pullia, which is a relative of pennyroyal. She brought the seeds over from Italy and grew them in her garden.
“It was sort of the basis of all the seasoning in her cooking,” said Mazzarella.
Pursuing herbal medicine
Even though she had grown up with these healthful practices, her journey into herbal medicine didn’t start until a bit later. She was living in New York City and dealing with some health issues when she decided to visit a Chinese herbalist. She was so impressed by how effective their herbs were she was inspired to learn more.
She attended the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine in Ithaca and got her masters of science in herbal medicine at the Maryland University of Integrative Health before moving to Sonoma County.
Mazzarella was part of the core faculty at the California School of Herbal Studies for more than a decade and has studied other modalities as well. She’s an Association of Nature and Forest Therapy certified forest therapy guide. She studied self-directed neuroplasticity and brain-based ways of healing chronic illness and chronic conditions. She’s also a certified nutrition specialist.
Clinical herbalist Hao Le mixes herbal extracts for a healing tincture at Farmacopia, an herbal apothecary Friday, March 20, 2026 in Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
“Farmacopia bridges modern nutritional science with traditional herbalism,” she said.
An integrative practice
When she took over Farmacopia, Mazzarella expanded the business and turned it into a highly integrative practice with naturopaths, nutritionists, herbalists, acupuncturists, body workers, aromatherapists, energy workers, a holistic aesthetician and more. The product line includes a few hundred herbal extracts, the Farmacopia tincture line and a tincture bar where herbal remedies are created specifically for each person. She developed the e-commerce side of the business. She said all of it is based in her own clinical work.
Mazzarella sees clients in her own clinical practice at Farmacopia and said that’s her favorite part of her work. She said although it’s a more generalist practice she’s known for helping with things such as hormonal issues, nervous system issues and digestion support. She also sees clients with complex chronic conditions, and sometimes their doctors even send them in.
“It is always nice to have my approach be supported by their physician,” she said.
Clinical herbalist Hao Le finds the herbal extracts needed before mixing a healing tincture at Farmacopia, an herbal apothecary Friday, March 20, 2026 in Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Mazzarella works with herbal medicine, nutrients and diet, and said she helps her clients look at the food supply as an opportunity for support in healing. She often creates unique blends for them in the tincture bar.
“Bioindividuality is real and we are looking at people as a product of their life circumstances, stressors, health conditions, genetics and constitutional responses to things. It’s a very hybrid approach,” she said. “I also work in the somatic and brain brain-based realms, working with people to kind of train their brains out of chronic pain, chronic conditions — that’s really fascinating as well.”
She said people refer family members to her and she often ends up seeing a whole family or even multiple generations in a family.
“I love my practice and it’s very sweet,” she said. “Being a business owner is hard these days but my practice feels like a place where I can just always kind of be with people where they are and offer support.”
Various programs
Mazzarella created a seasonal health program that helps people move through the seasons by paying attention to different body systems that might be particularly active or in need of support in that season.
“For example, spring is in most traditional forms of medicine considered liver and gallbladder time, when sort of the sluggishness of winter is starting to move and we need a little help kind of throwing off some of the excess layers,” Mazzarella said. “So our spring guide is geared toward ways of eating and recipes that all support the liver, gallbladder detoxification and elimination. Then there are herbs that go along with that. People can just do the food or they can do the nutrients and herbs that accompany it.”
She said her line of Farmacopia herbal formulas feel like little herbal emissaries. “There’s just so many beautiful ways that the plants are sophisticated medicine and then here’s this way of introducing them in a very user-friendly, beautiful way,” she said. “So I’m very proud of that as well.”
Mazzarella also formulated their Reishi Roast, which was one of the first mushroom coffees. It’s an adaptogenic blend said to help with the ability for the body to adapt to stress. Reishi Roast was launched in 2014, and Farmacopia is the only distributor. “It has a huge cult following and people really love it,” she said.
Dedicated staff
There are staff clinical herbalists and nutritionists that work on the floor at Farmacopia who are ready to steer people toward nutrients or herbs that might be supportive.
“We have people who’ve been coming in for 20 years,” Mazzarella said. “They’ve never seen a practitioner at Farmacopia except for on the floor.”
Mazzarella said the staff is really at the heart of Farmacopia and she’s felt very lucky over the years with many of them staying on for a decade or more.
“There’s really a wonderful sense of community there,” she said. “Everyone really likes each other, we get to know our customers and clients by first name and know what’s going on with them, know the things they like and don’t like.”
Farmacopia manager Virginia Xuereb helps customer Jessica Neafsey at Farmacopia, an herbal apothecary Friday, March 20, 2026 in Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
One of the newer staff members is Virginia Xuereb, who has been the manager since 2024 and now handles their marketing and social media accounts. She said she loves that she gets to work at Farmacopia.
“I shopped here a little bit before I got hired on, and I would joke with the girls that I just wanted to hang out here,” Xuereb said. “It just felt so good to be in a place where you walk in and your shoulders relax. Like you’re in a place where you know that you’re going to get taken care of and everyone is so sweet and the vibe here is very healing and welcoming.”
Many local practitioners, including doctors, dentists and nurses send their patients to Farmacopia for herbal help. People can also be seen in Farmacopia’s low-cost clinic with a whole range of herbalists, nutritionists, naturopaths, ayurvedic practitioners and more.
Hao Le is a clinical herbalist at Farmacopia. Like Mazzarella, Le saw plants being incorporated into everyday life during her childhood in Vietnam.
“In Vietnam, folk medicine is part of our lifestyle, it’s part of our cuisine,” Le said. “I just kind of took it for granted. As a kid, I remember having a sore throat or headache, things like that, and my mom would make this syrup with licorice and kumquat peel and other herbs. There was just so much knowledge within the community, among the women especially. I feel very grateful for having been exposed to that.”
Le studied at the California School of Herbal Studies. It was there that she began to see crossovers with plant medicines that she remembers from her childhood, such as the use of orange peel and licorice. She was most surprised when she studied the herb gotu kola, which she grew up eating in soup.
“I knew it was good for me, but then when I actually learned about it in herb school I was like, wait a minute, I know this herb, I grew up with it and used to eat it,” she said. “It turns out that it’s an herb that’s used here and also in Ayurvedic traditions. It’s good for connective tissue repair, focus and cognition and it’s considered a longevity herb in Ayurvedic tradition. So it’s a great vitality herb.”
In her clinical practice at Farmacopia, Le said her favorite remedies are found in the tincture bar where she creates custom blends for her clients.
“I would say herbalism is both a science and an art, and there’s so many herbs that might do the same thing, but we look at the client’s constitution, their energetic — meaning do they run cold, hot, dry, damp, and do they have other conditions, allergies and sensitivities,” she said. “You might have five different clients with seemingly the same diagnosis or condition, but we might formulate very differently for each of them depending on all of those factors.”
Le said she even creates the tinctures according to the person’s taste preferences. Some people might not want any remedies in alcohol and so they have glycerin available instead.
“Depending on their digestive status some people might need a little bit of warming spice to kind of help move things along,” she said. “We have so many herbal extracts at the tincture bar and it’s so helpful to be able to customize it according to our clients’ preferences and constitution. The tincture bar is just my main love.”
Community wellness
Mazzarella said community is important to her and she’s committed to keeping Farmacopia’s work and money as local as possible. “I have a very long standing relationship with our medicine maker, Matthew Persico, who’s in Sebastopol,” she said. “We bank at Redwood Credit Union and our staff is often coming to us through the California School of Herbal Studies.”
Over the years they have hosted lots of offerings, classes, workshops, events and community outreach. They helped found the bilingual Botanical Bus that serves local indigenous and immigrant communities.
“We believe in community wellness that goes beyond the individual, because the individual is part of the fabric and that for us feels very central,” she said. “The formulas of the Farmacopia line, which I formulated, those really are the result of 20 years of clinical practice. A lot of herbal medicine that’s out there right now is a little bit fly by night and hasn’t really been vetted for safety, effectiveness or sustainability.”
Mazzarella said that their mission is broader than individual wellness. It’s about human, community and ecological health.
“When we formulate, we’re really thinking about the plants, the farmers, the workers who are harvesting things, the medicine makers, the people taking it,” she said. “I love this kind of social dimension of herbal medicine, the community care and mutual aid — that tradition matters to me.”
She said they are trying to run Farmacopia in a way that reflects those values and that feels like respecting the people in the systems that sustain it all. “That feels like it’s in very short supply in the world these days,” she said. “That feels important to say.”
Supporting local businesses with those good values can have far-reaching benefits for the whole community. Mazzarella added, “Small businesses really are under a huge amount of pressure and we really, really, really appreciate the support of the community.”
Farmacopia is located at 95 Montgomery Drive, Suite 90. For more information, call 1-800-896-1484 or visit https://www.farmacopia.net/
Clinical herbalist and certified nutrition specialist Lily Mazzarella has owned Farmacopia, an herbal apothecary, since 2010. Photo taken Friday, March 20, 2026 in Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Erin Robbins of Sebastopol shops the herbal tinctures created at Farmacopia, an herbal apothecary Friday, March 20, 2026 in Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Farmacopia, an herbal apothecary Friday, March 20, 2026 in Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Farmacopia’s coffee substitute Reishi Roast Friday, March 20, 2026 in Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Clinical herbalist Hao Le mixes a recipe of herbal extracts for a healing tincture at Farmacopia, an herbal apothecary Friday, March 20, 2026 in Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
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Clinical herbalist and certified nutrition specialist Lily Mazzarella has owned Farmacopia, an herbal apothecary, since 2010. Photo taken Friday, March 20, 2026 in Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
