Medicinal Monday - The Magic of Cloudberry Tea

More often than not, Inuit use plants as teas using various recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation.  Tea-drinking is both recreational and medicinal. Cloudberry leaves are just one of the plants used by the Inuit and other Arctic communities drunk as a tea for medicinal purposes.

About Cloudberries
This circumpolar boreal plant can be found growing wild in the mountainous areas and moorlands of Russia, Alaska, Canada, northern Minnesota, New Hampshire, Maine, Northern New York, and the Nordic and Baltic countries. This delicate plant is propagated through its intricate root system as well as by seed distribution by birds and mammals that cannot digest them. In general, the cloudberry grows in bogs, marshes, wet meadows, and tundra in altitudes of 4,600 feet. The unripe fruit is red and sour.  As it ripens it changes to a peach or amber color and develops a sweet flavor often compared to the blackberry or raspberry.

Medicinal and Culinary Uses

Cloudberry leaves are used by the Inuit and made into a tea to treat stomachaches and kidney problems. Year old leaves that are picked in the fall are preferred for tea. Cloudberry tea was also drunk for overall health; and today, we know it is rich in vitamin C, iron, and high in antioxidants.

Because of the cloudberry's juice and tart flavor, it is an important dietary component among the indigenous tribes in Northern Canada and Alaska that would be mixed into stews and baked goods. In the Arctic Yup'ik mix cloudberries with seal, reindeer or caribou fat, fish, tundra greens, and sugar to make akutaq, a traditional dish meaning something mixed. This berry is a very important part of the overall diet of the Yup'ik.

Did You Know...

The Cloudberry appears on the Finnish version of the two euro coin.

The cloudberry comes from the rose family.

In Nordic countries traditional liqueurs such as lakkalikööri or Lakka is made from cloudberries. The beverage is produced by soaking the berries in alcohol anywhere between two and six months until sweetened, and is branded by Chymos and Lapponia both of which are distributed by the Sweden-based V& S Group best known for Absolut Vodka. 

Cloudberry is used as a flavoring for making akvavit. 

In northeastern Quebec, a cloudberry liqueur is made and is known by its aboriginal name, chicoutai.

Recent additions to making akutaq include sugar, milk, and Crisco.