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Vitamin C Content

Pine needles purportedly have three to five times more vitamin C than an orange, depending on what source you read, but there’s no hard and fast rule for how much C is in a pine needle.

Regardless of the exact percentage, we know that pine needles and pine bark make an excellent natural vitamin C supplement. At least they’re potent enough to cure scurvy, a chronic condition caused by vitamin C deficiency that, left untreated, results in death.

One historical account relates the 1536 story of French explorer Jacques Cartier, whose crew was cured of scurvy with a tea of pine needles and bark given to them by the Iroquois after the crew suffered months of nutritional deprivation at sea.

Even though the crew boiled the decoction, which would have destroyed a significant portion of the vitamin C, there was still enough ascorbic acid and various amino acids to completely reverse their symptoms of scurvy.

It was such a dramatic change, the tree used for tea became known as “tree of life”. There’s no way to determine exactly what species it was, but we know the tree of life was a conifer. Eastern white pine is just one of the handful of candidates that could have been used.

The ascorbic acid (vitamin C) content of pine needles seems to vary significantly depending mainly on the species of pine and the age of the needles.

The Eastern white pine needles of this USDA Forest Service study had between 0.72 mg and 1.87 mg of ascorbic acid per gram of pine needles.

New needles had the lower concentration, while 1 year old needles had 1.18 mg of vitamin C per gram of needles, and 2 year old needles had as much as 1.87 mg.

According to the USDA, 100 g of orange has 53.2 mg of vitamin C, or .532 mg/g. That puts pine needles at slightly more vitamin C for new needles, twice as much for 1 year old needles, and 3.5 times as much vitamin C for 2 year old needles.

The gist of the research is that ascorbic acid content increases with the age of the needles. Does that mean older needles are best for pine needle tea? Not if you’re after taste. Older needles make a stronger, bitter, more piney tasting tea, so if you want a milder, more delicate tea, look for brighter green young pine needles.

And don’t boil them. Boiling not only destroys vitamin C, but it also releases more terpenes--the organic compounds that make pine smell like pine--making more of a turpentine-like tea.

Other research indicates that balsam fir needles have significantly more vitamin C than white pine, so species matters, and the bark of white pine has more than needles. If you want a more potent brew of vitamin C, throw in some pine bark, although I can’t vouch for flavor, since I've never tried it.