SGUK Outdoor Skills Challenge 95: Make a Hot Drink from Pine Needles

Making a hot pine needle drink is a useful outdoor skill that combines tree identification, responsible foraging and basic campcraft. The needles can add a fresh, resinous flavour to hot water, but identifying the tree correctly is essential before collecting anything.

For this challenge, you must identify a suitable pine, gather a small amount of fresh needles responsibly and prepare a hot drink outdoors. Never assume that every evergreen tree is safe to use: some, including yew, are highly poisonous.

Your Challenge

Make a hot drink using correctly identified pine needles and hot water. Complete the task in a suitable outdoor setting, taking care to identify the tree, collect only what you need and prepare the drink safely.

You must:

• Identify a genuine pine tree with confidence.
• Gather a small quantity of fresh needles without damaging the tree.
• Prepare the drink using hot water and suitable outdoor equipment.
• Describe the flavour, appearance and preparation method.
• Explain how you distinguished the pine from potentially dangerous lookalikes.

Important: Do not use needles from an unidentified evergreen. Avoid yew completely, and do not consume any plant material unless you are certain of its identity and suitability.

What You’ll Need

• A reliably identified pine tree in a location where gathering is permitted.
• A small quantity of fresh pine needles.
• A mug or heat-resistant drinking cup.
• A camping kettle or suitable pot.
• Clean drinking water.
• A safe heat source, such as an established campsite stove or properly managed campfire.
• A knife or scissors, if needed for harvesting, used carefully.
• A camera or phone to photograph the tree and your finished drink.

Use drinking-quality water. Needles should never be treated as a substitute for water purification, and boiling does not make a poisonous plant safe to consume.

Take the Challenge

1. Identify the tree carefully

Before collecting anything, examine the tree and confirm that it is a pine (Pinus species). True pines usually have long, narrow needles growing in bundles, with the number of needles in each bundle varying by species. Their woody cones can provide additional clues.

Do not rely on the general appearance of an evergreen tree. Spruce and fir have different needle arrangements, while yew has flat, dark-green needles attached individually to its twigs. Yew is poisonous, including its needles, and must never be used for this challenge.

If you cannot confidently identify the tree using a reputable British tree-identification guide, do not collect from it. Choose another tree you can identify with certainty or postpone the challenge.

Also check the site. Do not collect from private land without permission, protected areas where gathering is restricted, or trees beside busy roads where contamination may be a concern.

2. Gather a small amount responsibly

Once the tree is positively identified, select a small quantity of healthy, fresh-looking needles. A small pinch is enough for a single mug; you do not need to strip a branch.

Take only what you need, avoid damaging buds or growing tips, and never break branches from a living tree. Where possible, gather a few needles from material that can be collected legally and responsibly without harming the tree.

Do not use discoloured, mouldy or contaminated material. If the needles have been exposed to chemicals, roadside pollution or unknown sprays, leave them alone.

3. Prepare the needles

Check the needles again before using them. Remove any obvious debris and rinse them with clean drinking water.

Cutting the needles into shorter pieces can help release their aroma, but use a stable surface and keep your fingers clear of the blade. You can also gently crush a few needles between clean fingers.

Do not taste raw needles to test their identity. Identification must come first, before any plant material is put into your mouth.

4. Heat the water safely

Set up your stove or fire in a suitable outdoor location, following the equipment manufacturer’s instructions or the site’s fire rules. A stove is generally easier to control than an open fire.

Heat a mug’s worth of drinking water until it reaches a boil. Keep the pot stable, use appropriate heat protection and position yourself so that you are not leaning over flames or hot steam.

If using a campfire, make sure fires are permitted and conditions are safe. Never light one during a fire ban or where it could spread to dry vegetation. Keep water or another suitable means of extinguishing the fire nearby, and ensure it is fully extinguished before leaving.

5. Make the drink

Place the prepared needles in your heat-resistant mug or suitable pot. Pour the hot water over them, taking care to avoid splashing.

Allow the needles to steep for around five to ten minutes. The water may develop a pale greenish or yellowish colour, depending on the species and the amount used. The aroma can be fresh, woody and resinous.

Strain out the needles before drinking. Let the liquid cool to a comfortable temperature and inspect it before taking a sip.

Do not assume that a drink is safe simply because it smells pleasant or looks normal. If there is any doubt about the tree’s identification, the source of the needles or their suitability for consumption, discard the drink without tasting it.

6. Assess the result

Once you have confirmed that you used a suitable, correctly identified pine, assess the finished drink.

Notice the colour, aroma and flavour. Pine needle drinks can be sharp, resinous or citrus-like, but flavour varies with species and preparation. Avoid adding other wild plants unless you have independently identified them and know they are safe to consume.

Record how much material you used, how long it steeped and whether you would adjust the preparation next time. The purpose is to develop a repeatable outdoor technique while keeping plant identification and food safety at the centre of the task.

Check Your Results

Before considering the challenge complete, check that you can answer these questions:

• Did you positively identify a true pine rather than simply an evergreen tree?
• Can you describe the needle arrangement that helped you identify it?
• Did you collect the needles legally and without damaging the tree?
• Did you use clean drinking water and suitable equipment?
• Did you heat and handle the water safely?
• Did you strain the needles and allow the drink to cool before drinking?
• Can you explain why you would never use an unidentified tree or yew?

If you could not confidently identify a suitable pine, do not drink the preparation. Finding out that you need more practice with tree identification is a useful result, and you can complete the practical part on another occasion.

Complete the Challenge

To complete this challenge, you must demonstrate that you identified a suitable pine, gathered a small amount of needles responsibly and prepared a hot drink using safe outdoor methods.

Take photographs of the identified tree, its needles and your finished drink. Make sure the images show the features you used to identify the tree rather than just a mug of hot water.

Your evidence should demonstrate the process, not encourage others to copy an uncertain identification. If you are not completely confident that the tree was a suitable pine, do not consume the drink and repeat the challenge when you can verify the species.

How to Submit Your Challenge

Log in to your Survival Guides UK account and open your member profile. Go to the Social Activity section and create a post with your challenge photographs.

Include the hashtag #SGUKChallenge95 and explain how you identified the tree, how you collected the needles responsibly and how you prepared the drink.

Your evidence will be reviewed against the challenge requirements. Never claim a plant is safe to consume if you have not identified it confidently.

Challenge 95 Checklist

Want to Push Yourself?

Once you have completed the basic challenge, develop your knowledge further by comparing the identification features of several native and commonly planted British conifers. Learn to distinguish pines from spruce, fir and yew before attempting any further wild-plant food or drink preparation.

You could also practise preparing a hot drink efficiently with a camping stove in cool, damp weather, paying attention to fuel use, wind protection and safe handling of hot equipment.

Keep plant identification separate from assumptions about edibility. A tree can be correctly identified without every preparation from it necessarily being suitable to consume.

What’s Next?

Continue building your practical outdoor skills with SGUK Outdoor Skills Challenge 94: Track an Animal Across Mud or Snow for 100m. That challenge develops observation, patience and the ability to interpret evidence in the natural environment.

Explore the wider SGUK Outdoor Skills Challenge series to keep developing your bushcraft, campcraft, navigation and outdoor safety skills.

Once you’ve shared your evidence and it has been verified, the SGUK Outdoor Skills Challenge 95 is complete and the completed challenges figure will be updated on your profile.