Devil's Club Sun Tea

Some of you have been writing in to ask about how to make devil's club tea. There's several ways to go about it and happily one of the easiest methods is also my favorite! Sun tea is a simple, gentle process.

Fill a jar with cool drinking water. Add several spoonfuls of dried devil's club inner bark. You can also add some dried mint at this point for flavor.

To see how to prepare devil's club bark go to Harvesting Devil's Club Root. For tea you can use the inner bark of the stalk, so you don't need to dig the root. Just be sure to wear appropriate gloves and eye protection to handle devil's club stalks! Dry the bark in a dehydrator, a barely warm oven, or on racks above the wood stove. Keep the temperature low and air moving through the bark bits.

The dried bark bits can be ground finer in a coffee grinder and then ironed into tea bags. (See Wild Tea for photos of filling tea bags.)

Give it a stir, and then set the jar out in a sunny, safe location. A jar of water can create a magnifying glass which can start a fire when the sun shines through it, so I set mine out on the metal boat deck.  The towel and pot holder are just for the photos.

Over a few hours or the course of the day the tea will become a lovely, light golden color.

Strain the tea, add flavors if you like - honey and lemon for you? - and sip a cup while relaxing. Devil's club tea has a medicinal taste. There is usually a light sheen of plant oil on the surface of devil's club tea, which is normal and not harmful. Refrigerate any remaining tea and use it up over the next couple of days.

Devil's club tea is invigorating for some people and gives a gentle lift for others. I like to have a cup to bring myself back after a long, strenuous task or if I am feeling generally wrung out.

Sun tea is a great way to make devil's club tea, but not the only way. You can make devil's club tea by pouring boiling water over the dried inner bark (an infusion), or make a decoction by simmering it. Each method creates a slightly different product.

 Devil's club is a powerful plant, and it's many sharp spines are a reminder to handle it with physical and spiritual respect in every step.

There are many articles on the medicinal qualities of devil's club: Ryan Drum, National Geographic, and Juneau Empire are a few.

Devil's club can lower blood sugar when used internally. If you have any reason to have concern there then check with your doctor.

Wishing you a sunshiny day,

Alaska Beachcomber

More posts about wilderness food and medicine:

• Field Mint
• Wild Tea
• Making Devil's Club Salve and Tincture
• Harvesting Devil's Club Root
• Bullwhip Kelp Pickle Recipe

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.  The material on this site is provided for informational purposes only and is not medical advice.

Wild Tea

My hands cuddle a homemade cup of herbal tea, soaking in the heat as I sip hints of summer in the midst of winter in Southeast Alaska. Oh, I do enjoy a cup of tea on days when hot chocolate is not called for. It is rare that I go to the store and purchase nicely packaged tea bags, though. Its way more fun to do it the long way. Collecting plants in the Tongass National Forest and making tea is healthy all of the way through the process, but I just do it because I love it. And because it gets me out to places like this.

Pat's Lake, Wrangell Island

Alaska Violet (Viola langsdorfii)

Last July hardy spruce trees on a pristine mountainside shook off the heavy winter snow and felt tender warmth from the sun. Teehee, sometimes I have to throw in a schmaltzy sentence like that just to see if you are paying attention. Truly, though, the snow finally thawed off of the road up to Middle Ridge Cabin, and my sweetie and I took a drive up there to collect spruce tips and other plants. We didn’t have to go that far for our harvesting, but now in January the memory of that delightful day adds a smile to each cup of tea.

Yellow violet (Viola glabella) in Southeast Alaska.

There were some violets along the way. Violet leaves and blossoms are edible. The flowers are so pretty, though, that I stick to gathering the heart-shaped leaves. They are very high in vitamin C. I eat some fresh leaves, but only a few in one day. I will dry most of them for tea.

And, of course, we picked a batch of soft spruce tips. That brown coating is brushed off, and the green tips are collected from the lower branches. They can be gathered even when they are bigger, as long as they are soft. The mature needles that the tree put on the previous year are prickly and poke our hands as we pull off the new growth.

Spruce tips

The plants on this page are just a few of the edibles and medicinals that are available on this one on one hillside. Such a rich place!

Eyebright (Euphrasia)

Dainty blossoms adorn eyebright plants. I clipped off the upper portion of a few eyebright plants.

When collecting I am very aware of the impact on the plant. Since blossoms are the reproductive portion, creating future crops, I harvest a few out of a patch and then move on.

The plant parts are dried on low heat in the dehydrator. The spruce tips take quite a bit longer than the violet leaves and eyebright. They make the whole house smell of fresh spruce!

When they are dry I store them in jars with lids that seal well.

Violet leaves, eyebright leaves, and spruce tips ready to be dried.

Later in summer the heal-all bloomed. They had a very good year, and were more abundant than I have seen in a long time. This pretty member of the mint family is another edible and medicinal plant. I gathered and dried some of the leaves and blossoms.

Heal-all, also called common self-heal (Prunella vulgaris)

Mixing wild herbal tea.

I leave some separated in the jars in case I want to make a tea of a specific plant. If I am feeling a little under the weather then a cup of heal-all and violet tea might be my choice. I also make a premix of spruce tips, heal-all,  and eyebright. I add mint and red clover from the garden. The flavor is delicate so I usually add honey or lemon when brewing the tea.

Hint: to quickly break apart the dried spruce tips, pour them out on a hard surface and roll a jar or a rolling pin over them.

I like using a mesh tea infuser, but you can also make tea bags. Spoon tea into the bag, press it closed with a ruler, and iron to seal it. A friend recommended the bags from Nichols Garden Nursery www.NicholsGardenNursery.com, and sure enough, they work. They are tough enough to put spices in and put into the stew pot, too.

Filling a tea bag...

...and ironing to seal the tea bag.

Okay, time to heat water for a nice mug of tea and a quiet half hour to read about ravens.

Tea break. Yep, that is another Kirk Garbisch mug. The guy is just a genius at turning a cup into a work of art.

If you are interested in gathering plants then I recommend the books "Discovering Wild Plants" by Janice Schofield and "Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast" by Pojar and MacKinnon. They are great books for getting plant identification correct and learning about the possible benefits or ill effects from their use.

Happy tea break, All!

Alaska Beachcomber

More on edibles and medicinals from outdoors: Devil's Club Sun Tea,  Food and Medicine from Nature

Nettle tea is good, too! Processing and Using Nettles