Blueberry Hibiscus Spruce Tea

A northern blend of hibiscus, dried blueberry and spruce tips. Hibiscus gives color and tartness, blueberry a jammy sweetness, and the spruce a bright, citrus-and-resin lift. Steeped in a covered mug at 100°C for six to eight minutes.

Origin & Story

Spruce tips are the soft, pale green new shoots that push out of the tree's brown husks in spring, from April to early May in the northeastern United States, and they are gone by mid-June. Foragers pick a few side tips from each tree, leave the leader shoot alone, and use them for syrup, soda and tea.

The taste is a surprise for a conifer: bright citrus and a gentle, slightly sweet resin. Dried, the tips keep their lift, which is why they turn up in northern tea blends.

The blueberries are the other northern ingredient. Wild lowbush blueberries, Vaccinium angustifolium, grow on managed native stands in Maine, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and the berries are far smaller than market blueberries, sweet and intensely blueberry in flavor.

Hibiscus is the outsider, a tropical flower in a northern forest, and it does the practical work: color, tartness, and a base that lets the berry and the spruce show. The result is a ruby cup that tastes of jam and of the forest at once.

Steep 4 g of blueberry, hibiscus and spruce blend in 240 ml of water at 100°C for six to eight minutes in a covered mug.

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