Solubility; If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

So we started talking about polarity and solvents. So if water is so polar why not just use that for everything? And why should you care?   As with most everything in life there is just more to the story.  I feel like I put the cart before the horse so let's back up and take a look at what solubility is, solutions are and how they work. 
What we are working toward is a better understanding of how we can make tinctures, oils, honeys and vinegars in a different and more informed way.  We are going to do this in easily digestible chunks, so if you have a question; ask, because someone else probably has the same one.  Here we go.
Lets start by talking about mixtures.  There are homogenous (means the same)  mixtures, example; a cup of tea with sugar. The tea, water, and sugar cannot be separated.  If you test anywhere in the mixture. the tea, water and sugar will be present. A decanted tincture for example, is a homogeneous mixture.  Anyplace you test it it will have plant constituents and alcohol.
Heterogeneous (means different) mixtures, in these mixtures components can be separated. For example, a tea blend.  If you blend a tea from dried herbs ie: peppermint, Valerian, and hops.  You can test this mixture in one area and find mostly or all peppermint, or mostly hops.  Even if you grind it very finely there will not be the exact same mixture of herbal particles throughout the mixture.
Recap: the tea and the sugar (smaller amounts hence solUTE) are soluble in water (the greater part and solVENT).  The dry tea is not soluble at all together till you add water to make the tea.   Make sense?  Do you see how this concept is important in herbalism?  Still with me?  Having fun?   If you are cool with this we can move on to the next concept.  If you have questions or need clarification do not hesitate to ask.
Where was I?  Oh yeah, science...right.  Now on to Solvents.  
Solvent definition: In a solution the substance present in the greatest amount.  These can be anything, but in herbalism we use: water, vinegar, alcohol, oil, honey and  glycerin, am I missing anything? All of these solvents have different actions and draw out different constituents of the plant matter, 
One of the things that is really important is which solvent will draw what constituent from the plant matter?  We aren't going to get the same effect when we use oil to make a tincture as we will when we use alcohol to make a tincture,  Why is that?  Is it magic?  Do we as herbalists just prefer vodka to oil? (certainly in a martini...would that be homogenous or heterogeous?) or does the vodka extract different constituents than oil extracts?  Now that we have solutes and solvents understood we can now have a solution. 
The definitions of a solution is this: "a homogenous mixture of solute or solutes dissolved in a solvent."  Ok so now we know that we are not really talking about dried herbal tea blends (we will cover tea blending later), but the product of steeping the dried plant matter in water or alcohol or whatever we decide is best with our new Giant Scientific Brains (GSB).
Now we can see where polarity fits into this picture, can we not? Let us review what we learned in the post about polarity.  (see previous post)
Now we see the importance of polarity and how knowing about polarity would be beneficial to medicine making.  BUT!  (there is always a but in science) there is so much more.  There is ph to consider, pressure, bonds, ionic capturing, phases...we will be here a while.  All of this gives us a peek into the possible, and hopefully sparks ideas that are unique that you can share with me!  This is going to be super fun.  I am really excited!  So next we are going to talk about bonds, different types and strengths.  I think that is a good place to go.