Are there flavors and scents that send you straight back to your childhood? Wintergreen does that for me. Growing up, my family spent every summer at a cottage on a lake in the mountains of northeast PA. That mountain is covered with sassafras, mountain laurel, blueberries . . . and wintergreen.
I would be hard pressed to think of a more simple delight than picking a few wintergreen leaves, crushing them in my hand and breathing in one of the most wonderful aromas in all creation. Seriously.
Trying to transfer that fragrance to taste in a cup of wintergreen tea, however, can be disappointing to say the least. Generally, with herbs, all that’s needed to enjoy a good cup of tea is a teaspoon or so of fresh or dried herb and some boiling water.
Not so with wintergreen. Pour boiling water over wintergreen and you’ll get a cup of boiling water. Well, I’m exaggerating a bit; there will be the faintest scent but practically no taste.
Identifying and Harvesting Wintergreen
American wintergreen (Gaultheria Procumbens) is a low-growing perennial evergreen that may be foraged year-round. Also known as teaberry, it is found from Newfoundland to Georgia and west to Minnesota. See the range map here.
Wintergreen prefers mountainous woodlands with dappled sunlight. It creeps along the ground in acidic soil and can form a thick carpet of oval or elliptical, shiny leaves that are about 2″ long. In late summer, it forms a red berry at the base of its leaves. Crushing the leaf is the surest way to positively identify wintergreen. If crushing it doesn’t produce a minty, wintergreen aroma, it’s not wintergreen.
In my area, wintergreen can be quite abundant. I know areas where I could harvest leaves for hours and still have plenty left. That’s not always the case, however, and the amount you harvest should always take this into consideration. Learn more about the ethics of foraging here.
The Benefits of Wintergreen
Wintergreen contains methyl salicylate, an aspirin-like chemical, which can help to alleviate the pain of headaches, muscle cramps, joint pain and more. It can also bring relief for digestive issues. If you are allergic to aspirin, you should avoid wintergreen.
The Trick to a Good Cup of Wintergreen Tea
So what’s the trick to a good cup of wintergreen tea? That would be the magic of fermentation.
Just pouring boiling water over wintergreen leaves won’t produce much of a flavor. Ferment them in water, however, and the flavor develops nicely.
To do so, pack a jar with wintergreen leaves and cover with chlorine-free water. Place a lid on your jar, cover with a tea towel, and leave on your counter or other warm area for 3 days, or until you see bubbles forming. Strain, and warm the tea gently just to drinking temperature.
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A few other posts on foraging from LearningAndYearning:
Wild Foraged Wintergreen Oil Salve
Plantain and Kelp Tooth Powder
How to Make Hickory Bark Syrup
How to Harvest and Crack Black Walnuts
Have you foraged wintergreen? What ways have you found to use it?
Thank you for visiting Learning And Yearning. May "the LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace." Num 6:24-26
D Smith says
This is great info; thank you! I have a question about peppermint, though. My dried peppermint leaves make both a tea and an alcohol extract that just tastes ~green~. It has the barest minimum of the coolness of mint, but the overall taste is NOT the peppermint I was looking for. Is there a ‘trick’ to this, too?
Susan Vinskofski says
Thanks for stopping by! Both a tea and extract from peppermint should both easily produce the mint flavor you are looking for. Is the dried mint old perhaps?
Rosalyn says
Susan I love this. I didn’t realize that you could make tea from wintergreen. A few years ago when I was pregnant with baby #2, I was just absolutely sick, but working on our provincial forest inventory (my job was botanical id) and when I found patches of wintergreen growing, I would crush a few leaves, inhale, and the nausea would just melt away. I’d always put a few leaves in my pocket for survey sites where it wasn’t growing, so I’d have some just in case! This is a foraging tea I would love to try.
Susan Vinskofski says
Awww, thanks Rosalyn. I’m so excited to see you have a new blog!!! Oh, how I wish I could have followed you around in that job. You could teach me so much. Wintergreen points to a caring God, doesn’t it?
Chelsey says
This is brilliant! I was wondering why my wintergreen tea didn’t have much flavor! Simple preparation error is all… Next time I know what to do!
David Pelvis says
What is to say about using dried leaves bought from Amazon? Same goes?
I keep reading on the internet that oil is not to be ingested orally. Do you think drinking this tea is harmful at all?
Just curious, for Root Beer sake.
Susan Vinskofski says
Hi David, I’ve never tried this with dried leaves, but I’m inclined to think that it may not work. That’s because fermentation relies on the natural probiotics that are on the fresh leaves. But, if you have some dried leaves, go ahead and experiment! I’m not a doctor, but my personal opinion is that this would only be harmful to someone who was allergic to aspirin, or someone who drank copious amounts of it.
Tristan says
I take fresh wintergreen tea leaves and cut them up into small pieces then run them through my perculator coffe pot. The first two runs are usually rather mild as you described previously, mostly just smell and not a whole lot of taste, but if you keep making more pots with the same crushed leaves by the third pot it will start getting stronger.
Joe says
Did you actually just compare drinking wintergreen tea to aspirin? How is God’s name could you ever compare something so wonderfully created in nature to a synthetic toxic substance as a drug. These are not the same. If you think sugar is bad, would avoid eating fruit then? Of course because bad sugar is not natural sugar.
Susan Vinskofski says
Interesting, though, if you are allergic to one you will likely be allergic to another. Readers need to know that.
Impish says
I am going to leave this here because it really started to bother me in case someone else came here looking for a good way of extracting wintergreen flavor and get confused whether or not wintergreen may cause issues if they have problems with aspirin after reading the comments, even though it’s been a few years there are still people coming to view this post (such as me.)
You can and SHOULD compare aspirin, the *synthetic, toxic drug,” with wintergreen the “wonderfully created in nature” tea.
“Methyl salicylate” is in wintergreen. Aspirin is (acetyl)salicylic acid. Note the SALICYL in both chemicals. They’re very closely chemically related. They’re both salicylates. They are both similarly toxic in large quantities and the treatment is the same for salicylate poisoning from either source. People who have issues with aspirin are also going to have trouble with willow bark tea, wintergreen, and several other herbals that contain salicylic acid.
Wintergreen oil (Methyl salicylate) has legitimately been used as an aspirin or aspirin substitute for a long time. That said, aspirin does not become toxic (or synthetic) simply because the chemical has been refined, adding an acetyl and sold in tablets and called a drug. It was toxic before. Methyl salicylate is also sold in pharmacies as a drug, usually in topical analgesics and account for more salicylate overdoses from misuse of pain patches or topical ointments than aspirin. Salicylates are by default toxic in large quantities whether that’s in the herb or in the tablet. They *are* the same. They *are* drugs. A(cetyl)spirin is a name derived from spirin, the initial name given to salicylic acid which was first extracted from the Spirea genus of plants and found in many different species from several genuses.
If we compare wintergreen oil used as a substitute (note that oil is concentrated) directly to aspirin:
“(20 drops) of oil of wintergreen is equivalent to about 1860 mg of aspirin, or almost six regular-strength adult aspirin tablets. Treatment is identical to the other salicylates.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wintergreen#Toxicity_of_oil
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_salicylate#Safety_and_toxicity
Leaves in tea is not likely to contain enough of the chemical to be toxic unless you drink a lot of it. That’s WHY the chemicals are refined for use in medicines. But it is important to use herbals responsibly and be aware of possible interactions or complications even from small dosages.
The idea that something is not toxic simply because it exists in nature, and toxic because it isn’t created in nature, is also a gigantic fallacy.
Bel says
Can the Mountain Teaberry be grown in a home garden or flower bed with wild flavor results. I grew up in Appalachia mountains in Western Carolina and picked and ate the berries in the fall. Chewed the leaves anytime I could find them during the summer. Used to be teaberry gum in the stores there. Not so good anymore. (the gum) When you can find it. I would like to have some seeds or plants to start at home. Do you sell the plants?
Luci says
Hi Bel – I just purchased 4 plants a month ago from a grower in Ohio (Hirt’s Gardens) and have re-potted them and have them growing inside under a plant light right now. They all have new shoots on them and I just CAN’T wait for spring to get here so I can plant them outside. They are pretty small plants but are still covered in berries and very healthy. You should check them out.
Susan Vinskofski says
Hi Bel, I know just what you mean about teaberry gum. I loved it when I was a child. Teaberry has been so abundant in my life time that I’ve had no need to try to grow it so I’m afraid that I have no experience. A friend of mine did try transplanting some without success.
Sunshine says
Thank you for this information – I wondered why I couldn’t taste my wintergreen tea. I was wondering about the alcohol content when it is fermented – do you know how much, if any, is in it? I’d assume there would be some because it is fermented?
Thanks!
Frances says
Thanks so much can’t wait to try this! Question about the lid and towel…does the lid go on loose or normal? I know some ferments need air is that what the towel is for?
Thanks!
Robin says
I planted my first Wintergreen this late spring in zone 7 and it seems pretty happy with the mostly shaded area it is in. I would like to add it to a tea blend, something akin to Evening in Missoula, that often includes “wintergreen” in the ingredient list. Can I dry the leaves and/or berries? You describe fermentation for tea. Does it make sense to ferment the leaves as is sometimes recommended for some berry leaves? Ie: wilt, bruise, let them oxidize then dry.
Thanks so much for the Wintergreen overview.
Robin
Susan Vinskofski says
Hi Robin! Yes, wintergreen leaves and berries may be dried for later use. And, unfortunately, I don’t really know the answer to your 2nd question. Your tea sounds wonderful!