This year I was blessed with an abundance of pineappleweed. So I’m spreading the love by sharing this easy tea blend with you. With fennel seeds as the supporting cast, this blend is well balanced and wonderfully soothing. You just have to forage the pineapple-scented flowers!
Pineappleweed / Matricaire discoïde
Let me introduce you to the one and only: Pineappleweed — Matricaria discodeia as per its Latin name.
Related to daisies, it’s a little plant that will grow pretty much anywhere so long as the spot is sunny and the dirt compact (read: human-disturbed).
It’s common in North America (and many other places) and yet so easily overlooked.
The main reason it’s brushed away as “greenery” is that it’s not your typical flower. With no petals, pineappleweed is a “toothless mouth of sunny air.”
Pineappleweed is not about looks, it’s really about smells, which attract bugs and humans alike.
If you crush some between your fingers, you’ll smell fruity pineapple with a hint of German chamomile.
The plant’s not cultivated as far as I know. So yes, if you want it, you have to forage it. How fun is that?
Foraging for pineappleweed / L’heure du glânage
The hardest part of foraging is not the actual harvest but locating the object of your desire.
Even if the plant is common, it doesn’t mean it will be growing on your doorstep.
Early last year on my neighborhood walks around Chicago, I only spotted a few plants in alleyways, in those couple inches of dirt near garage entryways. Pas très appétissant — I wasn’t appetized. Plus, it wasn’t quite enough to get a good harvest.
Thankfully, on a walk to the park I crossed paths with an enormous patch: enough pineappleweed for me, for the bugs, and for passersby to keep enjoying. Swoon!
Alas, it was a short-lived victory.
Summer was already well underway as I picked some to dry for tea. When I went back to get more a few weeks later, an unwise hand had obliterated them all in a deliberately coordinated effort.
When will landscapers live up to their name and respect the ways of the land?
It’s true that pineappleweed is, in nature, weedy: it will seed readily and cover ground. But it’s poor at outcompeting other plants and actually tends to grow where no one else wants, in the seedy spaces of earth.
The once pineappleweed forest was now a patch of bare dirt cracking in the sun.
This is why I don’t feel much restraint with urban foraging — someone ill-advised almost always comes to sabotage the plants in the end.
If I can use these plants as food or medicine before they get a visit from the Grim Reaper, La grande faucheuse, then all the better.
This is my way of honoring the plants, and along the way I might help spread their seeds…
This year, I had my mind set on pineappleweed. I kept an eye on them as the weather warmed to get my harvest in before the machine did.
For me in the Midwest, the usual prime time to harvest the flowers falls around the summer solstice, but it may well be earlier or later depending on your locale.
So keep your senses turned outward when you go out to greenery and pick pineappleweeds as soon as you see the flowerheads looking bright green and full. They’ll be at their at their best then.
Don’t wait for the flowerheads to turn bright yellow — they never will.
In fact, if the little cone-shaped flowerheads are straw color and disintegrate into their million seed constituents as you pluck them, they are already too old and their flavor will be… passée.
You can pluck the leaves too, but I don’t bother. Most of the tasty flavor is in the buds. A little leaf in the mix is fine though!
When I bring the flowers home, I like to spread them on a large plate to dry over the next week and make a cup when the desire strikes.
Keeping it simple / Des ingredients simples
To make the perfect cup, I searched for the perfect pineappleweed pairing.
First, I tried to lean into the pineapple aspect of the plant, mixing the flowers with fruity flavors. But after frustrating taste tests, it dawned on me I was reaching for the impossible.
Pineapple (the fruit) is very sweet and tangy so unless you’re going to add a lot of sugar and acidity to pineappleweed, it’s not going to taste like pineapple. And I’m not adding sugar to this perfect little plant. Someone else can do that.
Instead, I leaned into the weed identity of the plant: in the botanical sense, a cousin of chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla).
Once I treated it like a chamomile, things got a lot better.
I found that fennel seeds are the perfect companion, as they bring a touch of natural sweetness that perfectly mingles with the herbaceous pineappleweed.
I like to forage for fennel seeds as well if I encounter a fennel patch later in the summer but it’s also easy enough to find in any spice section at a co-op or grocery store. I usually bring my own baggy to the co-op and load up on high quality seeds for pennies!
Steeping time / Temps d’infusion
Both fennel seeds and pineappleweed can be used fresh, but dry plants mingle with water better.
If you use fresh material, you’ll want to make a quick decoction by bringing the tea to a boil before allowing it to steep. The strength of the boiling water will extract more goodness.
What I generally prefer to do is let the flowers dry until crisp and make a cup of tea from that.
Like most herbal teas, you can steep this tea anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes. The taste and color will be accordingly more intense. Or you can even cold brew it! See the recipe below.
Herbal tea uses / Usages de cette tisane
As for the uses and potential benefits of this plant, there is conflicting information out there on whether they have the same effects as chamomile.
If pineappleweed and chamomile share a botanical first name, and look and feel similar, I’ve found their flavor is definitely on par (with the pineapple bonus), but the effects of pineappleweed are milder.
While chamomile is to me noticeably drying, diuretic, and sedative, pineappleweed is not. I find it gentle.
It’s also possible chamomile was bred overtime to have stronger medicinal effects, whereas pineappleweed remains a wild edible.
So I hope you go out there and are graced by some pineappleweed, and if not, then maybe just a nice ray of sunshine — you can always make a cup of chamomile-and-fennel tea at home.
Bon appétit!
Disclaimer: This post is not meant to provide detailed identification and I advise you to do your own research before foraging anything for food or medicine. Alan the Forager Chef has a good article on identifying pineappleweed if you want further reading.
More good stuff for you
Pineappleweed Herbal Tea — Tisane de matricaire discoïde
Equipment
- mug & strainer
Ingredients
- 1 tsp bright green and fragrant pineappleweed flowers – about 30 flowers
- ½ tsp crushed or powdered fennel seeds
Instructions
- You may let the flowers air dry on a tray and then brew a cup like any other herbal tea: by pouring boiling water (205-212°F) over the plants, letting steep for 5 to 20 min, and then straining before enjoying.
- If you're using fresh plant material, you will want to coax more flavor out of it by making a decoction: add it to a pot with a cup of water, bring to a boil, turn the heat off, and let steep for 10 min before straining and enjoying. Be careful as the liquid will be quite hot.
- Or you can do a cold brew and let the tea steep overnight in a cup of water at room temperature, covered. Then strain and enjoy.
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