Restart from scratch, then restore tags and captions?

[papertape]

Windows 7 64-bit
Digikam 7.1

I damaged my database.

How do I tell Digikam to ...
... start over: create image and thumbnail databases and whatever else it likes, using the same images
    in the same disk folder locations,
... then restore tags and captions from a file?  Can I export tags and captions, to import after starting over?