Action4Canada - A4C Prepper Dan： Spruce Tip Tea Vlog14

00:00:00.000 hi and welcome to another edition of Prepper Dan well spring is two-thirds of the way down here but

00:00:14.280 there's still something you can harvest in your forest that you'll find highly beneficial high

00:00:18.840 in vitamin C antioxidant good to fight colds and flus and that is the spruce tip nice and bright

00:00:26.880 green coming out the tips of your spruce and I'm going to show you how to harvest it and how you

00:00:33.060 can use it and how you can even store it for long-term use nice refreshing drink for the summer

00:00:38.620 so let's get down to business here next to our small little spruce trees and I'll show you how

00:00:43.440 you can harvest it the first thing you'll want to do is you'll notice on the tips of these spruce

00:00:48.780 trees here the new growth from this year is nice and light and very very soft compared to the

00:00:56.740 prickliness of the growth from last year and it bends very easily and we had some really good

00:01:02.980 growth this year on some some of these lower ones here the the tips are still coming out so there's

00:01:08.940 good time to harvest these and these harvest very easily what I simply do I get myself a little bowl

00:01:16.640 here and I simply just pick the tips off and they come off very easily keep in mind that these will

00:01:22.380 be a little bit sticky so by the time you're done your hands will be sticky but just washes off with

00:01:29.320 soap and water and it doesn't take any time at all to really harvest like a bowl full like I have here

00:01:36.980 and actually harvest you know two or three little bunches at a time and they're quite soft

00:01:44.020 and in essence this is what they look like they're nice and soft and they stay together nicely

00:01:53.000 now you may be wondering how do you tell the difference between a spruce tree a fir tree which

00:02:08.240 is your typical Christmas tree or pine tree well a spruce tree when you pick one of the more mature

00:02:14.120 needles off on the side it's square so you can actually roll it between your fingers a fir tree

00:02:21.860 I'll show you that in a moment the needles are flat so you can't roll it and a pine tree I'll show you

00:02:29.040 that in a few moments too you'll either have a red pine or a white pine and that'll have long needles

00:02:35.860 in clusters of two or five so that's the difference now you can use there's different types of

00:02:42.160 spruce tree as well we've got white spruce black spruce and red spruce here and these are a white

00:02:49.760 spruce here but you can actually it doesn't matter if you mix up the tips and that it may give you a

00:02:56.000 bit of a nicer flavor the other thing too is you'll notice on some of these because they're still emerging

00:03:00.940 this is the end of May here where I am on the east coast there's a little paper cup on top of these

00:03:05.660 and all you got to do is just give them a shake paper cups are gone

00:03:09.140 so here's an example of a red pine here or yeah this is a red pine the red pine needles are very long

00:03:31.980 they are nice and soft we do have white pine here as well I happen to have a big pile of red pine logs here

00:03:38.020 that I have for projects that I use on my sawmill but the red pine will grow in clumps of two needles

00:03:45.460 and the white pine will grow in a clump of five needles and you can make a pine tea as well

00:03:52.660 and maybe I'll do another video on that at some other time so keep in mind also that with the

00:03:59.100 spruce tea you can make a tea any time of year with these by using the branches also here's just

00:04:07.240 a young tree and all of the the the needles are actually fairly fairly smooth on this one

00:04:15.020 but they'll be more bitter and I'm going to talk about the benefits of all that when we go inside

00:04:22.560 and I show you how to process all that so yeah this is a good harvest a good growth here so far this year

00:04:28.060 and you're not actually harming the tree by just taking taking off a few I take it from the the not

00:04:33.420 from the tops but I take it from the just the ends of the leaves here so you'll notice some of them

00:04:38.660 are very tight still these are perfect for harvesting and then some of them like on this

00:04:45.040 one here they're starting to fan out a little bit these are good too they'll have a nice lemony

00:04:50.040 taste to them all right now for this batch I've got about three cups of water in this pot

00:04:56.220 and I'm going to add I've got two cups of these spruce tips that I'm adding in here and

00:05:04.860 um I'm going to add I'm going to add a whole lemon to this I just slice it kind of thin

00:05:13.540 and I'm just going to pour or not pour but just kind of put the lemons right on the top like this

00:05:25.940 so it looks just kind of like that and then I'm going to put this on a burner here

00:05:32.100 the simmer and uh you'll see when it's done the whole top of the um you're just going to see

00:05:42.080 liquid on top and everything else will have settled right down

00:05:44.640 all right to preserve these long term what I like to do is I make ice cubes out of them

00:05:54.600 and I save them now these don't freeze like typical water they're a little bit gelatinous

00:06:05.120 and then I'll tell you when I when I make my my mixture in my pot there

00:06:13.080 you can drink it just as is or you can sweeten it a little bit now this particular mixture that I've

00:06:20.100 got in here I have some demerara sugar which is cane sugar that I had from Florida and I used about a

00:06:28.760 cup of it for um about I'm going to say at least twice that and I tell you it's sweetened it just

00:06:38.080 enough this time I'm going to try maybe three or four tablespoons of honey to sweeten that but

00:06:46.320 just let me show you like you know how usually with ice cubes they just snap right out

00:06:51.160 these just kind of they're they're a little bit sticky because um you know these uh these coniferous

00:07:00.020 trees um they are sticky you know it's like uh well it's like a pine tar almost but it's not pine but

00:07:07.560 obviously it's spruce I remember my grandfather you know growing up he used to carry his knife

00:07:12.400 like I grew up in Quebec and we used to have a cabin up and way up in northern Quebec and he

00:07:18.600 always used to walk around with a knife and every time you'd see some um some spruce gums coming out

00:07:24.780 of the tree he used to break the piece off and just throw it in his mouth anyhow so this is what these

00:07:28.920 ice cubes look like and you can preserve this year round what I do is in a bottle of water like this

00:07:35.040 I take one of these put it in there fill it with water and you can put other ice cubes in there too

00:07:40.880 but it flavors it ever so nicely and it's so refreshing and I'm going to talk to you about

00:07:47.020 the health benefits of um of these um these trees here and the I'm going to talk to you about the

00:07:55.520 nutrients of spruce tips in just a moment the other thing you can do is once this mixture is

00:08:01.280 steeped you can actually just make a tea some people add a little bit of lemon to it or you can

00:08:07.560 add a little bit of sugar or you can put some honey and just drink it as is you can make a big pot of

00:08:12.960 it just coming to a nice rolling boil right now but the other thing I can suggest to is um in my

00:08:18.860 freezer sometimes in one of our freezers when we have space I'm going to turn this down a little bit

00:08:24.200 here um when we have space I take some older bottles that we've had this had liquid honey in it

00:08:31.900 but uh it's a really thick bottle or even uh orange juice and I fill them uh about seven eighths of the

00:08:38.400 way full of water never fill it up full because you know water expands as it uh as it freezes

00:08:45.560 and any spare space in my freezer I put this is like a giant ice cube and it helps keep the freezer cold

00:08:53.240 if the power ever goes out I've got already made ice packs in there but once this mixture is cooled down

00:08:59.740 and it's um it's it's strained and I'll show you how I strain it here once this is done uh you could

00:09:07.060 you know fill this up three quarters or seven eighths of the way full and then throw it in your

00:09:12.800 freezer and then throughout the year as you need it you can strain it have it as a warm tea or again

00:09:19.940 mix a portion of it it'll be highly concentrated but uh you can make a nice drink with it it's refreshing

00:09:25.960 and again you'll get all of the health nutrients with it

00:09:29.740 okay this is simmered for about 30 minutes and so now we're going to use just a fine mesh sieve

00:09:38.340 and we're going to carefully

00:09:40.980 just filter out

00:09:45.460 this nice brew it smells so nice in here right now it almost smells like christmas

00:09:54.260 all right there you go

00:09:57.940 wow does it ever smell nice in here

00:10:01.940 you can see the nice color of it it's like a really nice yellowish tinge

00:10:10.740 and we're going to let this cool and I'm going to go ahead and make more ice cubes out of this one

00:10:18.680 rather than make a tea it's too hot today for a tea

00:10:22.160 but again you can put this in a one of those bottles once it's cool put it in the freezer

00:10:27.600 and save it for later and seeing as though there's all kinds of this outside if you don't

00:10:33.200 have property where you can harvest this along the road

00:10:36.640 do make sure that it's you're not harvesting in an area where there's been pesticide sprayed

00:10:42.140 that wouldn't be good for you but there certainly is a lot of this in nature

00:10:48.080 all right so let's explore some of the benefits

00:10:51.200 so while this is still warm I'm actually going to sweeten this with some honey

00:11:00.500 and I've got some raw unpasteurized honey here I'm going to put

00:11:05.320 maybe three three of these tablespoons in here

00:11:10.260 if I can get them off

00:11:12.740 I keep this in the fridge so it's a little bit hard

00:11:20.320 maybe I'll start with two and see see what it tastes like

00:11:42.740 all right this one just a little overpowered by the lemon

00:12:12.720 I used a whole lemon with the batch I did before

00:12:16.280 that was at least twice maybe even three times this amount

00:12:21.940 so but anyhow that'll turn out okay it'll be a little more on the lemony side

00:12:27.220 so good batch overall just a little bit of a different flavor

00:12:30.340 and I did put a little bit of black spruce tips in here as well

00:12:34.820 besides the white spruce so that may have just altered the flavor just a little bit

00:12:38.580 but that's good little alteration in flavor is not a bad thing

00:12:41.920 so spruce tip tea is good for a lot of different remedies

00:12:48.620 used in the springtime especially

00:12:52.140 and as I said you can find different ways to preserve it long term

00:12:58.840 be it in ice cubes and big ice blocks

00:13:02.280 it's used as a natural remedy for various health issues such as colds coughs and fatigue

00:13:08.580 so what are the benefits of spruce tip tea well it's rich in vitamin c

00:13:13.520 which is essential for a healthy immune system

00:13:16.660 it also has antiseptic properties which can help soothe sore throats

00:13:21.620 and ease respiratory problems

00:13:24.080 it's also has it also has anti-inflammatory properties

00:13:29.600 which can help reduce inflammation and alleviate symptoms of colds and flu

00:13:34.740 it also contains natural antioxidants

00:13:39.240 which can help protect the body from damage caused by free radicals

00:13:43.960 now I've heard it said and been reading up on this

00:13:50.700 that women who were pregnant should probably avoid drinking spruce 1.00

00:13:55.060 spruce tip tea

00:13:57.380 I'm having a hard time saying that really quickly

00:14:00.340 spruce tip tea

00:14:01.520 alright that only took a few minutes to prepare

00:14:05.620 probably take me longer to clean up after all that

00:14:08.280 but I'm going to sit back

00:14:09.700 enjoy my nice cool drink

00:14:11.580 and the house smells like Christmas

00:14:14.620 even though it's getting nice and warm outside

00:14:16.640 but I hope you enjoyed this informational little tidbit

00:14:20.080 get outside and get some fresh air

00:14:22.520 and do something constructive while you're at it

00:14:25.060 and enjoy a little bit of goodness and freshness

00:14:28.080 and some good vitamin c

00:14:30.180 especially this time of year

00:14:31.320 so I hope you found this fun and enjoyable

00:14:34.700 so God bless you

00:14:36.200 you have a great day

00:14:37.180 and we'll see you in the next one

Action4Canada - May 30, 2024

A4C Prepper Dan： Spruce Tip Tea Vlog14

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