MY BIRCH SPRING EXPERIMENT
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MY BIRCH SPRING EXPERIMENT
Birch is one of the most common trees in Scandinavia and has so many uses it is impossible to list them all… But lets give you an idea: burning wood, peethuts, furniture, branches are used for sitting on inside the lavvu and to smack people with inside the sauna, sap, tea, herbs/seasoning, gelly, syrup, essensial oils for saunas etc, make barbecue sticks with, use the wood to give flavour to the meat by damping the meat through birchsticks, bark is used for making jewlery, knifehandles, containers. It has a great number of medicinal uses, but at the same time so mild and allround that there a microscopic chances of using it in a harmful way. And if that was not enough I just learned that the Sami people used to make big rings of birch branches on midsummers eve.
Fresh Birch Leaf Tea
In spring when the leaves have just sprung out, and are a bit sticky still is when they are the sweetest. Otherwise the leaves can get a bit bitter in taste. Collect a handfull of leaves and put them into about 5 dl of boiling water. Leave for 5 minutes, and drink. You wont need any sugar because the birch contains xylitol which will make it sweet in taste.
From the old times it has been normal to drink this tea every spring as like a detoxing- regime for several days or weeks. As a spring cleanse. Why it would be done in the spring, not for example fall makes totally sense, because when you live in nature you follow nature. When the leaves spring out – THAT is the time to use them. The nature tells you what to do. The leaves are saying “use me”. They dont say that in winter, that why this is a spring-regime. Obviously.
To do a spring cleanse drink a cup of birch tea in the morning before eating anything else, and another cup in the afternoon around 5. Do this for a few weeks, or as long as you feel like it (listen to your body).
I never heard about this regime, but I am totally in love with birchtrees, so I decided I would try doing something with the birch this spring. I didnt read an awful lot about it, cause I didnt want to make a huge deal out of it, I just wanted to try making something to explore a bit what comes out of it. So I made a huge pot of fresh birchleaf tea that a drank several cups of for a few days. It tasted delicious, and it had an enormous effect on me. It was very diuretic, and I was truly surprised of the so noticeable effects it had. Dried tea never had that effect of me that this tea had. I had had trouble with continuous UTI (urinary tract infection) this winter, and have been taking cranberry supplements every day all winter to avoid it. But only after a few days of drinking a few cups of fresh birch tea, I could already feel the effects, and I have since this week of drinking fresh birch tea not felt like I need the cranberry.
Later I read this article saying that the birch leaf tea indeed are known to help with UTI. I was so surprised, because at the time I made this tea, it was mainly for curiosity, and love for the tree. But I guess everybody feels attracted to things for a reason.
The best encyclopedia of plants online is Rolv.no. It is in Norwegian, but if you can use any translating tool, then you will have great use of this website. See the effects of birch here.
Dried Birch Tea
I also collected a bunch of leaves to dry, to have as tea for the winter. I cleaned them and placed the leaves on an oven plate. Then set the oven on 30 degrees celcius, put something like a wooden utensil between the oven door so it doesnt close entirely, but is left open a few centimerers. I left it to dry for about 6-7 hours and then they are ready to be used as tea or seasoning.
Birch Leaf Candles
Another thing I have been doing lately is to make my own candles. I have collected the leftovers from every candle, and now I making new candles out of them. To make these candles I dried and pressed some birch leaves and put them as decorations around the glass. I wanted to make birch-scented candles, so I tried to actually just add 3-4 handfulls of fresh birchleaves into the wax. I left them until they where not green anymore, and then removed them from the wax. Then I poured the wax into the glass container I was making the candles in.
That was my birch experience this spring. As I told you, I aboslutely love birch trees and they are the first to spring out up here in the north, before any flowers or any other plants or berries ripe. Nature is kind to us that way, that not everything in nature up here are ripe and ready to collect at the same time. The summer here up north are supershort, and always go by very fast, since we have some much to do. Luckily one by one the plants, flowers, fish and berries become ready to collect for the winter…