There are a lot of tea varieties you might've tried before, but we're pretty sure you're not really familiar with a cup coming from pine needles. Though it sounds awkward and even weird, there are actually many health benefits you get from a pine needle tea, aside from the fact that it tastes so good, too!
For one, a cup of pine needle tea has about five times the amount of vitamin C found in lemon. The same ingredient has been used for hundreds of years by different people and cultures as medicine. You can read more about this when you go here. But perhaps the most significant historical proof is when European settlers, many of them infected with scurvy, managed to survive the hell of a winter when they were travelling in search of the New World.
Other than medicinal purposes and the natural richness in vitamin C, pine needle is likewise rich in fat-soluble vitamin A. It is an anti-oxidant that helps in promoting healthy skin, hair, and vision. It also is responsible in good red blood cell production. As for herbalist healers, pine needle is a very effective expectorant to thin mucus secretions. For its modern use, many people use it as an antiseptic wash, but it has to be cooled first.
And because there are several varieties of pine used for making tea today, it also suggests that each type has its own flavor. Know more of this at http://www.pinetea.ca/what-is-pine-tea.html. What tea enthusiasts do is mix and experiment with the different flavors and find out for themselves which are best suited for their tastes.
In order to make one on your own, you just need to get a bunch of young green needles. After that, remove the brown sheaths at the base and then wash them. After washing, chop them into small pieces. Heat water to near boiling point and then pour a tablespoon of the needles in a cup of hot water. Give it time to steep and cover it for about five to ten minutes. The key is seeing if the needles have already settled at the cup's bottom.
Just a quick reminder though: be sure you're not brewing the toxic varieties of pine like Norfolk Island, Yew, and Ponderosa needles. Also, use needles that are pollution free, which means that it is not ideal to get them from trees near the road or factories where they're exposed to smoke, chemicals, and garbage. Now if you can't find any pine trees in your locality, the best thing to do is buy pine needle tea instead.