Sugar pine needle tea

With the cold wet weather comes warm fires and flu season. Either I get a little bit sick for a long time or extremely sick for a short time so this time I could feel myself getting sick and wanted a boost of Vitamin C. Sugar pine needles right off the tree are chocked full of Vitamin C and since I can boil water fairly quickly over my wood stove, sugar pine needle tea is the perfect cold weather immune booster.

This time of year fortunately it is easy to identify sugar pines from all other trees because their pine cones are just about ready to fall or have fallen. Sugar pine trees have large but long cones. The other identifier is their short needles.  Ponderosa pine needles are poisonous to eat so don't be willy nilly trying this with all types of pine needles. I've been told sugar pine sap is pretty good too but I licked some on a tree to try and I was not impressed.

When I take the dogs for a walk, I can make the trek uphill just a little farther than usual to get to the sugar pine trees. Sometimes I get lucky with a low hanging branch since the pine needles need to be green to get all the good nutrients from them. Usually I can jump just a bit and pull some down.

Now, remove the little balls where the needles attach to the tree, you want just the needles only. I have been leaving a pot of water on the wood stove to humidify the room every time we have a fire so I just add some more water and the sugar pine needles. When the water gets hot enough for the pine needles to float to the surface, that is when the tea is ready. I add a packet of black tea and some sugar too because the taste is a little astringent without it and with is quite delicious. I like to strain the pine needles out too into my extra large mug.

I left some pine needles on a small branch in a vase as decoration and it lasted a long while and I just picked some needles off as needed. I used them in about a week but they were still green.