We all know that trees are good for us in a general sense. They take carbon dioxide from the air, thus helping to combat climate change. And while most of the oxygen we breathe comes from marine algae, trees still account for 28 per cent of the oxygen in the atmosphere.

Spending time around trees is also good for our health, with proven effects like reduced stress levels and stronger immune systems.

But during cold and flu season, the needles from many types of native conifers can be used to make tasty, nutritious teas loaded with vitamins and antioxidants. As with all natural remedies, it’s important to first check with your health-care provider to make sure there’s nothing in your health history that might conflict with drinking this kind of tea. Pregnant women should be especially cautious about any supplement not prescribed by a doctor.

That said, tea made from the needles of pine, spruce, cedar and fir trees has been safely consumed worldwide for centuries. The practice remains quite popular in Japan, Korea, China, and among Indigenous peoples in North America. One of the main things that evergreen needles are known for is their high Vitamin C content. In fact, by weight, pine needles have more Vitamin C than lemons.

Great source of Vitamin C

Although Vitamin C cannot prevent a cold or bout of influenza, research does show that it can help shorten the course of illness by increasing T-lymphocyte activity, and possible antibody and interferon production. Because our bodies cannot make Vitamin C the way they can synthesize B-vitamins, we have to get C from outside sources. In the old days, people who didn’t get enough fruits and vegetables, in particular sailors, used to get scurvy, a disease that caused anemia, tooth loss and eventual death.

In 1535, French explorer Jacques Cartier and his crew were on the verge of death from scurvy near present-day Quebec City. Luckily for them, they were cured by First Nations healers who gave them tea made from the needles of the eastern white cedar. Cartier dubbed the cedar “l’arbre de vie,” which is why today we find it labelled “arborvitae” at nurseries and garden centres.

In addition to Vitamin C, conifer needles contain Vitamin A and amino acids like arginine that are used to make proteins. Pine needle tea has also been shown to be anti-inflammatory, and to reduce blood pressure as well.

Hemlock tea is one of my favourite evergreen teas. This is not the recipe poor Socrates drank, which was made from the toxic perennial herb, poison-hemlock. The kind I like is an infusion of needles and young shoots from the stately eastern hemlock, sometimes called the Canadian hemlock. This hemlock tea is delicious, and the good part is that you can drink it more than one time. Plus, it’s fun to see the reaction when I offer it to guests.

Tree teas available in bags

There are dozens of companies that sell bagged evergreen-needle tea ready to use. However, if you have access to evergreen trees, you can easily make your own. Be sure to harvest just a portion of the ends of twigs from large, healthy specimen trees. Rinse the needles well under cool water, and blot them dry. You can freeze extra for future use.

To make tea from fresh needles, cover the bottom of a teapot, saucepan, or metal or ceramic bowl with needles – it is not necessary to chop them. Fill the vessel three-quarters full with boiling water (don’t boil the needles, which destroys Vitamin C). After steeping for 5-10 minutes, stir briefly and pour through a fine-mesh strainer before serving. Sweeten to taste.

For a sugar-free sweetener, you might want to try chopped twigs from either yellow birch or black birch trees, both of which are often referred to as sweet birch. Black birch is limited to parts of southern Ontario, but yellow birch is found throughout most of the eastern half of the country. The twigs have a naturally sweet wintergreen flavour, but for best results, they need to be steeped longer than pine needles do.

Other options

Another birch-related tea is made from Inonotus obliquus, a fungus that grows on birch trees of all types. Known as chaga, it has a long history in northern latitudes around the world as a medicine as well as a pick-me-up. Sometimes called cinder-conk because it looks as though it has been charred black, this native fungus is available online and at most health-food stores as a tea. The health benefits of chaga tea include lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure and lower blood sugar. Of course, there is no reason that chaga tea cannot be drunk together with conifer-needle tea.

All of our native spruces, firs and cedars are safe to use, but two western species of pine, ponderosa pine, found in central and lower British Columbia; and lodgepole pine, found in the Rocky Mountains and foothills regions of Alberta; can be toxic. The only other evergreen to avoid is the yew (Taxus spp.), which is native to Quebec and grown as a landscape hedge. If you’re new to tree identification, get someone who knows their stuff to help you. 

Doctors are already prescribing time spent in the woods, or “forest bathing,” for stress, anxiety and high blood pressure. Perhaps in the near future they may be telling us to drink evergreen-needle tea when we present with the sniffles.