In the spring of the year, about April around here, we'd do our annual chore of cuttin beanpoles. While we were at it we just went ahead and dug the roots for sassafras Tea. Of course, the sassafras couldn't be beat for beanpoles for our Kentucky Wonder beans. After a long old cold winter ones blood would need thinned out just a mite and that's where the Tea came in handy. Poles were not real big-the base was usually no larger than an inch in diameter. Same for the roots-only they were much smaller. Cut, trim and stack the poles then tie'm up in a bundle. Dig out those small roots-small about the size of a lead pencil. Bag'm up, tie the top and grab the poles. Stack the poles against the side of the old smoke house and lett'm dry and cure. Keep the bark on for some traction the bean runner could hold onto. Sassaffras has rough bark and that's why it's use in opposition to maple or some other "slick" barked tree. Also it was real common to find growin in fencerows closeby. Wash the roots in a 5 gallon bucket of water and hand rub all the dirt off. After they were all cleaned by washing several times and culled,-break'm in small pieces about 2 inches long. Take a handful of those prepared and start boilin'm in a small steel pan. Let'm boil for a rite smart time and get all the goodies from those roots. Keep addin water and not let the pan run dry or roots to burn/scorch. When all was done you'd usually have about a 1/2 gallon of concentrated Tea. Mix it with some water and sugar for the best spring tonic known to farmers. Mixture was about 2 or 3 tablespoons of T to a glass of water. Couple tablespoons of sugar. Each tree was used entirely-trunk for beanpoles, small roots for T and bigger roots for the old hogs to gnaw on. After all-they had spent a rough winter too and needes some tonic. Matt. 24:44

-- hoot (hoot@pcinetwork.com), August 12, 2000

Answers

I remember drinking this when I was younger, but now they say it is a carcinogen...(like a lotta stuff...sigh).I just know that it tasted good. A good friend of ours has blood pressure problems (too high) and a herbal lady suggested a few teaspoons of sassafras tea evey day, along with other stuff (the medical docs not having a whole lot of sucess with the problem). I have heard that you need to dig it eary in the spring, as tea made from the roots at other times is thick and rope-y. DON'T use the bark or wood. A co-worker has a relitive whose boy was in Scouts this spring, and the leader fed them a "salad" of dandelion, violet leaves, and sassafrass bark. The other two greens are fine--but the bark made them so sick--the kids spent the night throwing up. EEEK!

Sassafras wood smells good, esp. freshly cut...kinda like root beer!

-- Leann Banta (thelionandlamb@hotmail.com), August 13, 2000.