My buddy John hooked me up with some fresh blueberries the other day and the first thing that came to my mind was, "I've got to make some blueberry and pine needle tea with these". The first time I tried pine needle tea was at a Buddhist temple a few year back and it knocked my socks off but I'm not fully convinced the need for this type of tea was a cosmic calling.You see, so far the only wild plant tea that I have had success in making is pine needle tea. So adding blueberries to it would seem logical. Never the less, I have been drawn to the idea for some time now and decided that this morning I would try it.
Fist I went outside and grabbed some fresh pine needles. I live in Carolina so we have long needles that work quite well. Pine needle tea has a citrus flavor, it's easy to make, and is good for you. Remember that the next time you are in the woods.
I cut the long needles into two parts and put them in a pot of water. Once everything came to a boil I dropped the temp down and let it steep.
I then crushed the blueberries in my steeping pot, filled it will boiling water, and let it steep. Since the berries are a good part water I didn't think I needed to steep them under heat for a longer period of time.
I let the pine needles go for about 15 minutes and then mixed them together. In honor of my friend John's newest hobby I decided to sweeten the tea with honey. In the end, the tea came out awesome. A slight citrus flavor with pine needle vitamin C along with and the antioxidant punch of blueberries.
Enjoy!
