Winter Tea Time: Peppermint-y Sweet Birch Tips
This past week has been a cold one! For the larger part of the past 8 days I’ve kept myself bundled inside. Finally the thermometer hit 28 degrees and I knew I had a window to get the fresh air that both my body and my mind craved.
I figured I should travel to new lands and see what the back roads of Boston’s metrowest had to offer me. I headed towards Carlisle, MA a town with many beautiful public spaces.
After watching a few brave ice fisherman, I nestled in to a lovely walking trail abutting a classic New England field accentuated by stone walls and maple groves. As I came around a corner in the path, I felt a snag in my winter hat – a birch catkin had found a home in my stunning faux-rabbit pom-pom.
As I fished out the twig, I was elated to see that it had come from a large stand of beautiful old black birch trees. What luck! In the winter and spring time, both black and yellow birch trees harness tasty flavor in their tiny little branches – peppermint. The best part about these types of birch is that you don’t have to go far to find them. In fact, some may be right outside your doorstep, literally!
How do you know if you have found black or yellow birch?
First, observe the color of the bark. Both younger black and yellow birches have a sheen to their bark. Black birch has smooth black bark that greys over time (as seen in my pictures). Yellow birch has shiny golden-silvery bark that peels similar to white birch but in smaller clusters. All birch are marked by horizontal lenticels (pores).
Branching is alternate. Black birch twigs are shiny golden to milk chocolate brown whereas yellow birch twigs have a green-red-brown hue.
Don’t get bogged down in the details though…just do the scratch and sniff test. Pick a small twig off the end of a branch and scrape a bit of bark with your finger or a pocketknife. If you smell wintergreen, you have lift off!
Health Benefits
Both black and yellow birch have similar health properties. They are analgesic, anti-inflammatory and relieve minor aches, pains, and abnormally high body temperatures. They contain calcium, manganese, potassium and phosphorus.
Birch Tip Tea
Like most loose-leaf or foraged teas, its pretty simple. Boil your water. Once the water has boiled, turn off the heat and allow it to sit for several minutes. You don’t want to use boiling water over the twigs as it will evaporate the wintergreen oil.
Snip the twigs and leaf buds so they fit into the pot, cover with a lid, and let them steep at least 20 minutes. The tea will become a golden-red color as it steeps.
Because there are no bitter tannins in birch bark, you can even go really crazy and steep it overnight. When the water is cool enough, pour the tea into a glass jar and it is ready to drink. Drink the tea within a day or two, otherwise the flavor quickly dissipates.
You can also use birch bark twigs as starters for your own wild sodas, or as an ingredient to wild shrub and vinegar mixes!
Sample some of my own black birch tip tea at my next Coastal Foraging Event – February 23 in Rye Beach, NH!
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