Pine Needle Tea doesn’t need a lot of time to prepare or a full day to forage, this is Scotland and Pine trees are not hard to come by.
After a short walk on a rainy evening my basket was full and I could return home to dry off and warm up with a hot cup of freshly picked needle tea.
After removing the needles from the branches with scissors, remove all the brown needles, or anything else you might find like wee beasties or cobwebs and throughly wash them.
Having pound the needles to help release the flavours an essential oils, place into a boiling pot of water and let the tea infuse.
After 5-15 minutes according to taste remove from the boil and pour into a cup, I like to add lemon and ginger to my needle tea. Needle tea is a refreshing drink on its own and that is how my partner prefers it.
With the remaining needles, I placed them in a jar with apple cider vinegar to infuse over six weeks which will make a vinegar that is akin to balsamic vinegar.
We also placed some needles in a jar with vodka to make pine needle tincture. Now all that needs to be done is to cozy down and drink tea in front of the fire.
In other news, Napoleon loved his needles raw without the water!
Wild Food Scotland 