Vanilla Leaf Tea

I harvested a bunch of leaves from the vanilla leaf plants growing wild in the forest. My ultimate goal is to enjoy a cup of tea with the dried leaves since I had come across the usage in my research of the Oregon native plant.

I was curious about the name because I know that vanilla that is used for flavoring comes from a variety of orchid from around the equator and does not grow around the Pacific Northwest. The vanilla leaf plants in the forest are neither the climbing plants or pod producers of the tropics.

Officially the plant is called Achlys triphylla, but it also goes by vanillaleaf, vanilla-leaf, deer’s foot and sweet after death. That last scary name came to it by way of the vanilla scent it gives off as it dries. The plant is considered to be non-toxic and even has some minimal health benefits but is more common to used as an insect repellent. Hikers in the Washington and Oregon Coast/Cascade Mountain Ranges use the leaves in both the fresh and dried form to keep mosquitoes at bay.

I nibbled a fresh leaf in the forest and found no vanilla taste at all, just a really green taste.

I collected a bunch of leaves to dry in the food dehydrator with the goal of trying the plant as a tea since hearing about making tea from the plant.

Turning on the bare minimum amount of heat so as not to cook the tender leaves, I left them overnight to dry out. The house did have a slight vanilla-ish scent to it as the fan wafted the essence.

I was quite surprised the next morning to see that they had not shriveled like I would have expected from my past ventures into dehydrating. It took most of the next day to dry the leaves completely.

I crushed enough leaves to fill a tea ball and poured myself a steaming cup. It made a very mild chamomile type of herbal, I could not taste the vanilla even though others in the room could smell a hint of it. I did not experience any mosquito bites after my cup of tea, but it may just be because it is a rainy day in May and their aren’t any of the little blood-suckers hanging around yet. I am still going to keep the idea in mind when the mosquitoes are active in the woods and use the fresh leaves to my advantage.