How to Make Pine Needle Tea
This article explains how to identify and harvest pine needles and turn them into deliciously distinctive pine needle tea in your kitchen — in just a few minutes!
What Does Pine Needle Tea Taste Like?
When I first made pine needle tea, I expected an intense pine flavor. In fact, the flavors are subtle, pleasant and soothing.
But they are complex too, especially in comparison to one another.
When I’m in the woods, I often crush a few leaves of hemlock, fir, spruce or pine needles between my fingertips. This produces an intense burst of aroma that’s so delicious to smell.
Each species’ aroma is distinct. Some are milder, some are sweeter, some are more floral or perfume-y.
These various qualities come out in the teas, albeit in a subtler way.
The notes are mostly earthy, and a little grassy, but definitely with a lovely piney quality that lasts quite a while in your head. Some needles produce a slightly citrusy flavor.
Hemlock has the most complex aroma, and is my favorite by far. It also produces the deepest flavored tea.
Benefits of Drinking Pine Needle Tea
If you think drinking pine needle tea stops the aging process, alleviates allergies, and cures depression, it probably does — for you.
Back on planet earth, pine needles are a remarkably potent source of Vitamins C and A. (Pine needles have eight times the Vitamin C contained in orange juice. Scurvy, begone!) And I can definitely attest to a mild decongestant effect.
Pine is a long-standing traditional remedy for coughs and colds, as well as urinary tract and sinus infections.
These are great teas to drink in winter when the Vitamin C content of the needles is 4–7 times higher than usual, peaking in February and March.
More importantly, any connection between the forest and your body is significant. There’s a wonderfully transporting quality to drinking tea made with ingredients gathered on your last hike.
Harvesting Pine Needles
Many pine needles can be made into tea. The main exceptions are Yew, Norfolk Island Pine, and Ponderosa Pine, all of which are toxic. (All the common pine trees of the Catskills are non-toxic.)
Both hemlock and eastern white pine are very common species. There is no fear of over-harvesting either of these trees.
I haven’t yet tried spruce needles, or fir needles. Spruce needle tea has a reputation of being quite tasty. Fir needles are known to have even more Vitamin C than white pine needles.
Rather than cutting fresh twigs from trees, the best practice is to harvest dropped branches directly from the ground.
It won’t be hard to find pine blowdown on the forest floor. You’ll come across several batches on almost any hike through an evergreen woods.
Identifying Hemlock
Note we are talking about the hemlock tree (Tsuga canadensis) — not the poison hemlock weed, all parts of which are extremely toxic to humans. Socrates was famously forced to commit suicide by drinking poison hemlock. The hemlock tree is not toxic. It’s delicious.
Hemlock needles are flat and short, always less than an inch long. They are attached directly to either side of the twig and arranged in flat layers.
Notice the lighter green needles near the tip of the twig. This is newer growth. Some people brew only these lighter-green needles to make a sweeter tea. (These needles, however, have far less vitamin content.)
To differentiate hemlock needles from fir needles — which are longer and thicker, but can look a little similar — just flip over a twig to look for white stripes on the underside to confirm it’s hemlock…
Identifying Other Pine Needles
White Pine is very distinctive and easy to spot. The needles are long, thin, flexible, and always arranged in bundles of five.
Yellow Pine has its needles arrange in bundles of three.
Red Pine has its needles arranged in bundles of two.
Spruce has single needles attached to the stem — the needles are square-ish, sharply pointed, and will roll easily between your fingers.
Fir also has single needles attached to the stem — the needles are flat and will not roll between your fingers.
Preparing Pine Needle Tea
Preparation is very simple. First, gently wash your harvest in cold water to remove any dirt.
Next, tear off a few twigs and place them into an empty mug.
I used to remove the individual needles but it’s painstaking work, and it’s not necessary.
Some people like to muddle/bruise the needles to release more of the pine oil. This might be more important to do on thicker needles, like fir needles.
You can experiment with quantity. This is how I roll…
Add hot water…
Allow the needles to steep for 2–3 minutes, then remove and drink. The water remains more-or-less clear but has a strong aroma and flavor.
Watch the needles for a very obvious color change, the kind you can see in this photo of eastern white pine needles before and after they were brewed…
White pine produces a milder, sweeter tea than hemlock.
Hemlock makes great tea on its own. I love it. But it can be a touch bitter, so you may want to sweeten it lightly.
Sometimes, I’ll add 1 tsp of shagbark hickory syrup. A new friend tried this combination and said…
“This tea is like drinking the forest. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it.”
Tweaks
Change things up with a small squirt of lemon juice.
You can also try all the usual tea-tweaks: cardamom pods, ginger, honey, etc.
Finally, pine needle tea is very easy to make while camping out. Ingredients don’t get any fresher than fresh-from-the-forest.
Originally published at https://mountain-hiking.com on January 4, 2021.
