If you grew up in North America, Asia, or Africa.. you may have seen this bush near your home. This bush contains berries that many of us were told to avoid because they were ‘poisonous’ growing up, but come to find out these berries are quite medicinal and delicious.
The berry and bush we’re talking about today is the Sumac tree, or bush. This branch-rich bush pushes out beautiful red, ideally dark red (sometimes an even purple red-ish color) of berries that are great tea making aids!
Sumac looks like this:
Sumac is a berry, so it’s mostly natural sugars. Carbs. But it also contains fiber, fat and other vitamins.
It is also rich in many antioxidants that are beneficial for combatting oxidative stress that the body experiences.
Some research has shown that Sumac is beneficial for people facing blood sugar issues and are suffering from type 2 diabetes. In 2014 a group of 41 people were tested. The groups were set up and one group had sumac daily while the other had a placebo.
The group that had Sumac had substantially healthier blood sugar levels at the end of the study, which is very promising.
Another study in 2016 showed that sumac may relieve muscle tension and pain. Once again, sumac was administered with two separate groups. The group that received the sumac experienced less muscle fatigue and pain.
How I Use Sumac Berries
I personally love harvesting them. It’s fun to hunt and find some red rich sumac berries in the forest on a good hike. It’s a treat, a reward for hiking. Fresh, nutritious wild berries that are not only physically beautiful and they also smell amazing.
The easiest and simplest way to use Sumac tea is to simply procure the berry batch from the bush and bring it home. Then, take it and add it to a jar of water and simply let that sumac (covered on top) sit in the sun for the full day, and it will make a nice sun tea. If you don’t live in an area with much sunshine or it happens to be raining that day, you can simply make the tea over the stove as well.
In that case you’d simply take the sumac berries, put them into a pan, steep them in water (not quite till the boiling point but still hot) and let it steep.
Then, pour it into a vase or cup with a mesh cloth to remove any plant particles that you don’t want to drink.
You’ll get a nice tasting, almost raspberry like flavored tea to drink. It’s delicious both cold and warm! Enjoy!
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