Spruce Tea ~ A Delicious Way to Fight Colds

Last Updated on January 4, 2023

You may have a potent cold remedy growing in your yard right now, even on the coldest day of winter. Get to know this delicious, foraged (i.e., FREE) healthy drink, spruce tea!

Did you know your yard is probably filled with plants you didn’t realize were edible? Better still, many are delicious and extremely nutritious.

You don’t even need to wait till the growing season starts to forage in your yard (check out all the delicious edible “weeds” you’ve been mistakenly tossing in the compost when spring rolls around), it turns out your pine and spruce trees are a great resource for winter foraging, though you can make this delicious, healing tea any time of year. Spruce tea is a great way to continue eating seasonally and locally year-round.

Spruces and pines have been used as a food source by native peoples for centuries, providing sustenance in the lean months of winter. They’re a valuable source of vitamin C, helpful for keeping that immune system humming during cold and flu season, and in fact were used to prevent scurvy by Native Americans. They’re reported to contain many other vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, though I have yet to find a source to link to here.

Spruce and pine teas are often used as a remedy for respiratory ailments, and they also contain large amounts of shikimic acid, the compound used to make the flu-fighting ingredient in Tamiflu! Enjoy a tasty foraged cup of tea and fight colds at the same time? Not bad!

One study reported that “pine needles exhibit strong antioxidant, antimutagenic, and antiproliferative effects on cancer cells and also antitumor effects in vivo and point to their potential usefulness in cancer prevention.”

Here’s more on pine needle tea benefits if you have access to pine trees near you. Or try some pine syrup or pine needle tincture the next time a cough strikes. Or if you’re reading this in spring, consider gathering and using some edible pine cones.

Curious about other medicinal plants you might be growing in your yard? Here’s information on starting a medicinal herb garden, with more than 45 herbs to choose from.

Related: How to Fight Colds Naturally

Much of the spruce and pine tree is edible, but today we’re just using the needles, in an easy-to-make, nourishing tea. If you want to try foraging other parts of the tree, check out this informative post from Eat The Weeds, which reports you can eat the inner bark, pollen, pitch and cones!

If it’s spring, check out this information on gathering the tender spruce tips for fun culinary adventures. (Here are 25 spruce tip recipes to inspire you.)

Note that pregnant women are advised to avoid spruce and pine tea.

In addition to the health benefits of this refreshing tea, the taste has lots to recommend it. I find the flavor just like a Christmas tree smells. Try it and you’ll know what I mean. That scent that gets in your nose as you decorate your tree is exactly what you taste when you drink spruce tea. Really delightful and uplifting.

As with any herb, it’s best not to overdo, but by all accounts a daily cup of this tasty spruce tea shouldn’t pose any problems for most healthy, non-pregnant tea foragers.

Identifying Conifers for Spruce Tea

**Always consult a good field guide for foragers or enlist a local expert so you know what you’re collecting.**

Here are some of the best foraging books I’ve found.

The Herbal Academy has an online course on Botany and Wildcrafting that teaches plant identification and ethical wildcrafting practices.

Both spruce and pine (as well as fir) trees have needles you can brew tea from, but many find spruce needles have a mellower and more pleasant flavor. To tell a spruce from a pine, just look at how the needles attach to the branch. In short, spruces have needles that attach to the branch individually, while pine needles grow in bunches. (see below)

Here’s more on identifying spruce vs fir vs pine.

The main thing to be sure of is that you’re not mistakenly collecting needles from a yew, which is highly toxic. Yews are very different and are easy to identify once you know their features: They have wide, flat, bendable needles, darker on top and lighter on bottom and don’t produce cones (they have red fruit). Here’s lots more on how to identify yews (and why to avoid them) from Eat the Weeds. This video also has a good description of what to look for.

There are enough questions about Norfolk Island Pine and Ponderosa Pine that you should avoid them as well.

Here’s lots more on distinguishing different types of conifers from Iowa State Extension. If all you have handy are pines, no worries! Your tea will taste a little different, but will still make a healthy winter drink when you want it.

When to Make Spruce Tea

Your spruce tea will taste different at different times year. Expect your winter spruce tea to have a stronger flavor and the tea made from spring tips to be lighter and milder.

You can actually nibble the newly-grown tips fresh or use them in cooking like rosemary, but that’s the subject of another post. Just keep in mind that conifers are a nutritious food source, and be on the lookout for the new spring growth. In the meantime, enjoy this healing tea you can forage all winter long!

Related: Immune-Boosting Elderberries

How to Make Spruce Tea

Gather your needles from a tree that won’t have residues from chemical sprays. This likely means avoiding trees in public parks or from yards where homeowners spray their lawns. (If you’re foraging from your Christmas tree, be certain it’s one that wasn’t sprayed, as many commercial operations do spray trees.)

Gather needles sparingly, as the tree needs enough left to stay healthy. I just chopped a few inches off branches encroaching on the sidewalk.

Note that hot water should be poured over needles rather than boiled with them to preserve medicinal elements.

Spruce Tea

Ingredients:

1-2 tbsp spruce needles, on or off the branch, rinsed
1 cup freshly boiled filtered water (here’s why I only recommend filtered water)
Optional: A little sweetener if desired (raw honey would be the most medicinally-useful choice)

You can pull needles off the branch or not, as you prefer. Chopping or crushing the needles will produce a stronger tea and likely will release more of the beneficial compounds. But just dunking a few cut twigs in your cup saves effort and makes straining unnecessary.

Pour water over needles and allow to steep at least 15 minutes, preferably covered. Longer brews will be stronger flavored, but should also contain more of the useful compounds from the needles. I leave mine for at least a few hours if I’m not in a hurry and don’t mind a cooler drink.

I’ve successfully re-brewed the same needles to prevent an extra trip out in the cold. I just left the little twigs in my cup while I drank and refilled with fresh boiling water. The second cup was a tad weaker, but still very tasty.

Miss foraging ingredients in the dead of winter? Look no further than your conifers!

If you’re looking for more goodies to forage when everything’s frozen, check out this amazing post from Practical Self-Reliance that includes more than 50 wild foods for winter foraging in cold climates!

In late winter and early spring, you may find some other edible and medicinal plants you’ve overlooked. Here’s how to use creeping Charlie, dandelions, wild violets, and Virginia waterleaf, and here are more than 25 medicinal trees. Once summer arrives, you’ll find loads more edible flowers worth adding to your next salad or cup of tea. Here are other perennial herbs to consider for your garden.

And if you want to make as much as you can from the plants in your yard, it’s worth knowing that lavender leaves can be used like their pretty flowers. Here’s what to do with lavender leaves.

If you love foraging ingredients for delicious herbal teas, here are some other ideas:

• Elderflower Tea
• Elderberry Tea
• Mulberry Tree Leaf Tea
• Birch Tea
• Ginkgo Biloba Tea
• Dandelion Tea (from leaves, flowers, or roots)
• Nettle Leaf Tea

How about you? Ever tried brewing up tree-based tea before? If you do, let me know what you think!

Pin to save this spruce tea recipe for later!

Disclaimer: I’m a health enthusiast, not a medical professional. Content on this website is intended for informational purposes only and is not meant to provide personalized medical advice. I draw on numerous health sources, some of which are linked above. Please consult them for more information and a licensed professional for personalized recommendations.

Additional photo credit of spruce needles in pin: FoYu