In the Spring, when trees are putting out their new growth, it’s the perfect time to harvest Douglas-fir tips for brewing tea and beer. If you have never tried them, imagine that good smell trees have, and that’s about what they taste like. They are not only delicious, but good for you, and fortifying with a nice, local source of vitamin-C. You can store them either dried or frozen for use throughout the year, and there is nothing quite like curling up with a mug of hot fir tip tea to make you feel festive around the winter holidays.
If you look around at coniferous trees right now, they are all putting out these bright green shoots at the tips of each branch.
The tips are very tender and fragrant, and should pull off easily from last year’s growth when you go to pick them.
We had a Doug-fir that we happened to need removed, since it was shading a couple of fruit trees in our yard, so it was easy picking to pull the tips off of the limbs that were down on the ground. Otherwise, low branches are easy to pick from. We ended up with several gallon freezer bags full, one of which I plan to share with a homebrewer friend. I also collected a couple gallons of Spruce tips out at the coast last month to use in a spruce beer in lieu of hops. I may do the same with some of these fir tips, but my primary plan is to try drying and powdering them in my homemade chocolate and saving some for tea.
When I sit down with a hot cup of fir tip tea on these rainy Oregon spring days, I feel as though I’m drinking in the forest.
It’s good living in the woods.
My nephew has just been picking fir tips to make some kind of 'moonshine' – he soaks them in alcohol and sugar for two months and the end product is a very strong sweet can-only-drink-a-tiny-amount drink. For the tea, do you just put the fresh tips in hot water?
Do you pick the end tip? here we leave that on and only take the ones on the side of it.
I've been thinking lately that I might try making soap as every morning while I'm out walking in the woods I always think it would make a great soap scent – pine-mushroom-earthy-fresh!!!
This fir tip moonshine sounds intriguing! I just steep a few fresh, frozen or dried tips in a cup of water for tea. I have been picking the end tip too, but mostly picking from branches already on the ground from our tree felling or low branches I intend to prune at some point. When picking them out and about in the woods where I'm not managing trees any, I try to pick them selectively here and there so I'm not cleaning off a branch. A soap sounds delightful!