Foraging Your Own Pine Needle Tea

Stop and consider the fact that nature has the answers to so many of our qualms, and yet our first response is often to run to a drug store and find some mediocre solution with possible side effects.

Hello, Germs

Before we know it, there’s going to be a lot of germs going around. Now, that doesn’t have to be seen as a bad thing. It means that life is picking up as spring gets into gear, people are going out more, getting fresh air, going to new places where *gasp* germs exist.

Being exposed to germs is great! It lets your body gain a tolerance and strengthen itself against future immune attacks. We fight germs every day — it’s inevitable.

And we don’t always get sick from those germs, right? But the day that we do sucks. Especially as weather warms up, the sun stays out longer, and we want to stay out longer too.

Let me introduce to you a great, NATURAL way to boost your immune system.

What type of drink first comes to mind when you think about vitamin C?

I’ll bet the answer is orange juice.

Did you know that the earth provides other medicinal plants — that you probably have somewhere close to you — and that can actually give you greater access to a solid immune boost than OJ?

Did you know that pine trees are higher in Vitamin C than oranges?

Specifically Eastern White Pines.

They are beautiful in the way they layer their branches as though they are trying to match those beautiful spring tufts of cloud floating above them. They are also beautiful in the INSANE medicinal value that guards you against all those spring time germs.

Natives have been foraging pine needles from these glorious trees for a long time, and with good reason.

They make a really great tea that really kicks the onset of any cold right out of you.

Make this tea the moment you begin to feel it coming on, and you will momentarily wave it goodbye.

Personalizing your cup of goodness…

While it tastes deliciously subtle and airy as clouds by itself, there are herbs and such you can add to your tea for further benefits and flavor.

Here are some ways that you can personalize your pine needle tea:

• Honey is a great way to get natural sweetness. Use a honey local to you and it can also combat some of those seasonal allergies

BONUS FACT

The bees making local honey do so by collecting local pollen. So if you are irritated by those pollens, internally taking a spoonful of honey each day sets up your defense against springtime allergies.

• Cayenne adds a nice bit of kick to your tea, offering the benefit of being a body detox mostly in terms of your digestive system and any sinus congestion you’re experiencing.
• Adding some fresh lemon juice gives a great acidity to round out the flavor of your tea. Lemon also has a lot of detoxifying qualities — digestion, skin, etc. It’s antibacterial (hence why you may find it in many naturally made cleaning products) which can aid you in things like throat infections.
• What else do you add into your herbal teas? Let us know in the comments and we can learn together.

Foraging Techniques and Considerations

If you are going to forage these pine needles yourself…

Where should you forage?

You may want to stick to foraging from natural environments, as opposed to city environments, for example. Trees are natural cleaners of our air, they suck up whatever toxins are present in the environment and cities certainly will have trees that carry the local pollution.

You’ll want to go looking for pine needles in a place where, when you sniff the air, you feel cool, refreshed, and revitalized (and a nice hike in your nearest state or national forest sounds like a dreamy spring adventure anyways, so get out there and smell the pine needles).

Which trees should you preference when foraging?

Look for younger, immature Easter White Pines to forage from.

When say “immature” trees, I’m not talking about shoots that just barely came up out of the ground. Have a little compassion on the baby trees and let them get a little head start in their life cycle, okay? Look for trees that are maybe 3 to 4 feet with a decent amount of branches and pine needles.

Ideally, the tree will also appear to be in overall good health.

Younger trees carry a lot more concentration of medicinal properties than in larger trees.

Consider the difference between a mature leaf in your garden picked for a salad compared to your micro-greens growing in the kitchen. The micro-greens contain a significantly larger amount of nutrients all packed into a smaller bite, simply because it’s at an early stage in life and is henceforth harboring all of there energy that it will take to go from being a tiny little seedling to a full grown tree.

Or consider children — they grow quickly at first and gradually slow down as they reach maturity, having less expounding energy — because they’ve already distributed most of it to the full body they’ve been growing since conception. Crazy how nature and people are so comparable right? Just some food for thought.

Caution!

Not all pine trees are the same. Make sure you look up the variety you are harvesting from. Eastern White Pines are my preference because I am surrounded by them. Pines in other geographic regions do have Vitamin C, but some can potentially be toxic. Look it up before you forage.

Can you preserve pine needles?

You can steep them in hot water fresh or dried. If you are drying pine needles, you will know that they completely dry when the needles are brittle enough to snap into pieces. Store them in an airtight container.

You can forage more than you are going to use immediately (but please don’t over forage — take a reasonable amount that will suffice your household until you are back in an area to collect pine needles).

How much should you forage from a singular tree?

This is the last and MOST CRUCIAL thing to consider when foraging.

Thoughtfully consider how much you are taking from any particular tree. Pine needles are like leaves, they are the part of the tree that takes in nutrients from the sun, and if you take too much from any singular tree, you can actually hurt its ability to grow and thrive and do whatever trees do best.

We want to come in alinement with nature. As it helps us boost our immune system, we don’t want to destroy its ability to maintain its own health. Also…we don’t want to make it bald. Imagine if someone came and took a whopping chunk of your hair, for instance. Not cool.

Take no more than a handful per tree.

And per Native tradition, always thank the tree for sharing its gifts with you… Yeah, I said it. Talk to the tree. It’s your friend.

Let’s get back to using the resources created for us in the first place. Let’s remember that creation has a purpose — to soothe, calm, support, and encourage — and we are purposed in partnering with creation to find truth and value and life in it’s embrace.

Happy spring, stay well.

find the full recipe over on my blog: thevanessabarnett.wordpress.com