… up here in Northern Minnesota.
The top picture is of my breakfast, which includes “fresh pine needles” tea. The way I did it was:
1. Pick a cluster of pine needles from the end of a branch (apparently these are “younger” and therefore thinner that some of the others”) (and mine are from one of the 2,540,587 long needle pine trees here).
2. Put the whole cluster into a mug (I like white interior so can see how much is extracted), fill with boiling water, cover, and let sit 10 minutes. That’s what in the first image.
3. Drink.
4. Take the same cluster still in the mug (now extracted once), and do the same thing again (this time I let it sit for a couple hours I guess). That’s what’s in the second image.
5. Drink (very cool and refreshing and stronger flavor than first time).
And that’s what I do.
Pretty easy, and no cutting of needles and very easy to remove from hot water if keep the pine stick (branch) attached.
I’m quite sure the second extraction brings out more pine needle oil from the needles, because they had been pre-softened.
Aloha, Kp