There seems to be a new fad of local foragers making tea from the needles of Douglas fir and Grand fir. I am guessing there are Native American origins to this practice. How safe is it, especially in an urban environment? Are there supposed to be benefits to drinking this kind of infusion?
There is a deep tradition of ethnobotanical uses of various parts of both Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and Grand fir (Abies grandis). Nancy Turner’s book, Thompson Ethnobotany: Knowledge and Usage of Plants by the Thompson Indians of British Columbia (Royal British Columbia Museum, 1990) says that “a beverage tea was made by boiling Douglas-fir twigs with their needles. This tea was said to have tonic and diuretic properties.”
Turner says there is a great deal of confusion surrounding both the English common names and Thompson Indian names for various fir species. This makes it difficult to know which species were intended for which uses. An infusion made from the boughs of a species that might be Grand fir (Abies grandis) “could be drunk for any illness.” In Ethnobotany of Western Washington (University of Washington Press, 1973), author Erna Gunther notes both distinctions and confusions between Abies grandis and Pseudotsuga menziesii: according to the Green River informant she consulted, tribe members boiled Grand fir needles as a tea to treat colds, but a Swinomish informant believed Grand fir and Douglas fir to be the same species.
Douglas fir and Grand fir are not mentioned in Toxic Plants of North America (George Burrows and Ronald Tyrl, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), but a plant’s absence from a list of toxic plants does not mean that it is risk-free. Common sense says it would be best not to gather needles from urban trees that are not your own, since there is no way of knowing whether those trees might have been sprayed with pesticides, or exposed to air pollutants.
According to Stephen Facciola’s Cornucopia II: A Source Book of Edible Plants (Kampong Publications, 1998), tea made from young foliage and twigs of Pseudotsuga menziesii is both refreshing and high in vitamin C. He says that the young branch tips of various species of Abies, including A. grandis, are used as a tea substitute.
I could not find reliable information about the recommended quantities of needles to water, ideal length of boiling time, or chemical properties of needles used for tea. Elise Krohn, author of Wild Rose and Western Red Cedar: The Gifts of the Northwest Plants (self-published in 2007) has information on her Wild Foods and Medicines blog about “making evergreen tree tip tea.” My advice would be to proceed with caution and consult a medical professional in case a coniferous tisane might have potential interactions with other substances. (Even a popular beverage like Earl Grey tea can be problematic due to the Citrus-derived bergamottin which interacts with some medications).