It's interesting where life's road will lead you sometimes. 

In June of 2006 I was introduced to a patent pending process of converting slash (limbs and needles a.k.a. tree trash) into a soil amendment.  I thought this was a great way to recycle a product of nature that was heretofore either being burned (bad carbon release policy) or being piled in landfills (bad land use policy).  This process converts tree branches and needle/leaves into a 2 mm or less particle size material, that when either added to some other organic manure or used just by itself makes a terrific soil amendment, a.k.a. fertilizer. 

The interesting thing about this process is its’ ability to reduce the size of pine needles all the way down to a talcum type powder without the typical heat from grinding or use of chemicals.  The end result was a product as nutrient pure as it was in its original state. 

As we continued to do research for this soil amendment project we kept coming across information on the health benefits of pine needle tea.  The only problem was I couldn’t find any to buy*.  After seeing the difficulty in truly processing pine needles into a desireable form tea type material I understood why.  Now I know there are a couple dozen websites that say "just go out and pick yourself a handful of needles, throw them into a pot and you can make your own tea.  I tried that and truthfully it tasted like warmed over bath water.  After a couple of years of processing R&D we have been able to develop a protocol to convert pine needles into a tea product with all its' uniqueness of flavor and health benefits intact.

In February of 2009 Colorado Pine Needle Tea LLC was formed and we are excited about the opportunity to offer a variety of pine needle products whose benefits have been talked about over the centuries, that now everyone can enjoy.

Happy brewing,

Chris