Liquorice(British English) or licorice (American English) is the common name of Glycyrrhiza glabra, a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring can be extracted.
The liquorice plant is a herbaceous perennial legume native to Western Asia, North Africa and southern Europe.liquorice is used as a flavouring in candies and tobacco, particularly in some European and West Asian countries. Liquorice extracts is used in herbalism and traditional medicine.
Food and confectionery
Dried sticks of liquorice root Liquorice flavour is found in a wide variety of candies or sweets. Through chewing and suckling, the intensely sweet flavour is released. The sweetness is 30 to 50 times as strong as sucrose, without causing damage to teeth. The root of the plant is simply dug up, washed, dried, and chewed as a mouth freshener.
For thousands of years has been used for medicinal purposes including indigestion and stomach inflammation. Some other medicinal purposes are cough suppression, ulcer treatment, and use as a laxative. Also, can be used in many products as sweeteners and aromatizers. The major use of liquorice goes towards the tobacco industry, at roughly 90% of usage. The rest is split evenly between food and pharmaceutics, at 5% of usage each . Liquorice extract is often found in sweets and many candies, some drugs, and beverages like root beer. It can also be used in chewing gum, tobacco products like snuff, and toothpaste.