pine needle tea

[clanmaki]

Hemlock needles and white spruce can be used to make a nice tea as well. Both are pretty common here in parts of NYS. All I've ever done is pour hot water over the needles and let them steep. If you don't want to sort through needles to drink the tea you could wrap them in a clean cotton bandana first and then pour the boiling water of your homemade tea bag. The end result can be a nice herbal tasting tea.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...Be well.

snapper

Just to add to this for the sake of some who might not know, but the Hemlock Snapper is talking about is the tree not the plant. The plant is very poisenous. It probably didnt need to be said but you never know. Just in case.

[CimarronJr]

Thanks for adding some clarification on this. I would feel better if that website cited its sources (kinda ironic given the author's rant about unreliable internet myths). But even so, the abortion danger thing didn't ring quite true to me, either.

Just quoting the USDA. Granted, they ARE talking about cattle eating the stuff. I did not say that you're going to kill over from drinking a little Ponderosa tea; just if the isocupressic acid was enough to hurt livestock then I'd think twice before making a habit of imbibing.

[Fiddlehead]

I thought this video by Bushcraft on Fire was good at learning the basics of needle selection and best method of making of pine needle tea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrSqva1Y9Bg

Hope this helps.

[Loogaroo]

In the wise words of Socrates- "I drank what?"

[Woods Walker]

Hold on. We are on page 3 and no pics? What the.....

Eastern White pine.

[EdD270]

I've made teas with pine, spruce and fir. Of those, my favorite is spruce and least favorite is pine, but all are good.
And, yes, here's a pic.

[SwissArmyKnife]

Is there a good resource on identifying these particular trees? Possibly on with the various medicinal effects as well. A picture library with this info would make a delightful sticky in this forum.

EDIT: right after I jumped the gun on this post is did some searching. This resource is great at identifying conifers!
A Field Guide to Conifers
http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/fieldbio/pkenlan/HTML/index.html

[UDTfrogman]

I tried this stuff today and it was NASTY! But I had to try it.

[Woods Walker]

I tried this stuff today and it was NASTY! But I had to try it.

How did you make it?

[Whisper Creek]

When I made mine, I just snatched some white pine... kinda bitter, but not to bad for my first time.