Labrador tea
A low bog shrub of subarctic North America whose leathery, rust-backed leaves are infused across Canada and Alaska. It spent two centuries in the genus Ledum and was moved into Rhododendron on molecular evidence, which is why both names remain in circulation and why old field guides disagree with new ones.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Rhododendron groenlandicum
- Family
- Ericaceae
- Part used
- Leaf
- Origin
- Boreal and subarctic North America and Greenland — bog, muskeg, peatland and tundra edge
- Drunk in
- Quebec, Labrador, Nunavut, Alaska
Character
Sweetly balsamic and resinous, with a camphor lift and more sweetness than sharpness — closer to a conifer than to a herb, and rounder than pine needle. It takes a long steep badly.
Notes: balsam, juniper, camphor, sweet resin
History
Used across the boreal zone by Cree, Innu, Inuit, Dene and other peoples long before the fur trade, and taken up by French and British traders and settlers who gave it the name it now carries in English and French. In Quebec thé du Labrador survived as an ordinary domestic drink and is now sold commercially as a regional product.
How it is drunk
Infused domestically across northern Quebec, Labrador and the Canadian north, and increasingly sold in Quebec as a bought tisane and used by brewers and distillers as a flavouring. It is a plant with real standing in the places it grows and near-total obscurity outside them.
Production
Leaves are stripped and dried whole; the rust-coloured felt on the underside is a diagnostic feature and survives drying, so it is the quickest identity check on bought material. Short steeps are the convention, and the flavour is strong enough that most of it arrives in the first two minutes.
Preparation
Infusion
Herbal infusion (tisane)
1–2 g/100 ml · 90–95 °C · 4 min
Category-typical practice rather than a measurement for this specific botanical. Most infusions are far more tolerant of a long steep than tea is.
What gets confused
At least two plants carry the name. Rhododendron groenlandicum is the North American shrub described here. Rhododendron tomentosum — marsh or northern Labrador tea, formerly Ledum palustre — is the Eurasian and high-Arctic species, is stronger in character, and is what a European forager means by the name. They are different species and the packets rarely distinguish them.
Common mistakes
- A long steep. Two minutes gives the balsam; ten gives the camphor and little else.
Evidence for this page
This page is TeaHQ synthesis throughout. No external source stands behind any statement on it, including the botanical name. 132 of the 204 botanicals have had their names and distribution checked against a taxonomic authority and this is not one of them.
Brewing parameters here are typical practice for the category rather than measurements of this plant, and each set says so.
This page makes no safety claim. It describes what Labrador tea is, where it comes from and how it is prepared — not what it does to a person. The absence of a safety note here is not a statement that the plant is safe. How TeaHQ handles this.