Amelia's Turkey Tail Tea | Live Free or Die: How to Homestead

Either these are turkey tail mushrooms. So, turkey tail is one of our favorites. They are easy to identify. Pick a piece and look on the underside; if the underside has pores in it, which are lots and lots of teeny tiny holes, then it's turkey tail. The top of the mushroom has stripes on it. The reason that it's called the turkey tail is because the mushroom actually looks like a turkey tail, with the colors in the shape of it.

I'm going to pick a bunch of them. I'm just going to pick enough for a couple cups of tea for Tony and I. There's no need to harvest more than I need for a day because they're so plentiful, and they pretty much can be picked year-round. So, this is enough mushrooms to make some tea for Tony and I this evening.

What I'm going to do next is just kind of wipe off the dirt. Mushrooms that grow outside, of course, tend to have a little dirt on them. Alright, so these are nice and clean. Just going to kind of pair them up into this pot. It's good to tear them into pretty small pieces because the smaller the pieces, the more surface area on the mushroom, which allows more of the medicine to be pulled out when it's being centered.

Alright, got this all broken up. Now I'm going to put just a few cups of water in here because I'm just making a couple cups for Tony and I. Now I have my water in here; I am going to bring it to a simmer, and I'm going to let it simmer for about 15 minutes. You don't want to boil the turkey; you just want to simmer it. If you get it too hot, you can actually destroy some of the nutrients, so kind of a long, slow 15-minute simmer is ideal.

Okay, so it's been about 15 minutes, and this turkey tail tea is ready to drink. I'll pour the whole thing with the mushrooms. This handy little strainer catches all the mushrooms. Okay, I'm just going to go ahead and pour a few small cups. That allows the tea to stay warmer longer, so just pour several small cups instead of one big cup and leave most of the tea in here to stay warm.

Mmm, definitely has a mushroom flavor and it has kind of a bitterness to it. I think the bitterness is where the medicine is. Mmm, alright, I need to go find Tony to give him his medicine.