How to Chew Spruce Gum (Complete Beginner’s Guide)
How to Chew Spruce Gum
Buying natural spruce gum is only the first step. Learning how to chew it is the next. This guide walks you through the technique we teach our customers, from that first hard piece of resin to a smooth, chewable wad.
This isn't commercial chewing gum.
Natural spruce resin behaves differently from manufactured gum. It starts firm, reacts to temperature, and needs warmth, moisture and a little technique before it comes together.
Alberta Wildcraft Canadian Spruce Gum is made primarily from wild-harvested spruce resin, with a small amount of pine resin added for elasticity.
Many first-time chewers are surprised by the texture. Some hesitate to try it. Others immediately bite down and wonder why pieces went everywhere.
That's normal.
Once you understand what the resin is doing, the whole experience makes much more sense.
The Alberta Wildcraft Method
If you've got a piece in your hand right now, start here.
The Melt
Put the piece in your mouth and don't bite yet. Suck on it like hard candy and let the resin warm.
First Bite
Move it to one tooth and slowly bite down once. Shattering is normal.
Balance
Keep the pieces warm and moist without letting them float around in too much saliva.
The Fold
Keep everything on one side and use your tongue to fold the pieces back into each other.
Form The Wad
Chew, compress and fold until the fragments become one cohesive piece of gum.
How to chew spruce gum — real demonstration.
Sometimes seeing the technique makes everything click. Watch the resin move from hard pieces to an actual chew.
The forest moment.
You pop open the tin and you're immediately hit with that deep forest scent: spruce and natural tree pitch.
It doesn't look or smell like conventional gum because it isn't.
You're holding natural tree pitch harvested from the Canadian forest.
Now let's turn it into gum.
The full chewing process.
Choose your piece.
Resin pieces naturally vary slightly in size and shape. Pick a piece and place it in your mouth.
Do not immediately start chomping. Fast chewing at this stage can break the resin into tiny pieces and scatter them around your mouth.
We want manageable shards, not resin powder.
Warm it first.
Swirl the piece around your mouth and suck on it like hard candy. Let the resin flavour coat your tongue while your body heat begins warming the piece.
You can take your time here. The goal isn't to melt the resin away. You're simply warming it enough to make the first bite easier to control.
Choose a side and bite slowly.
Move the resin to one side of your mouth and position it over a tooth. Slowly bite down once.
It may shatter. That's normal.
Keep those pieces localized rather than immediately chewing everywhere. Your tongue becomes one of your most useful tools here.
Balance the saliva.
As you begin working the resin, your mouth will naturally produce saliva. Some moisture helps keep the warming resin workable.
But there's a balance.
If there's a large puddle of saliva, the little resin pieces can float apart instead of staying together long enough to bind.
Swallow excess saliva as needed while using your tongue and the roof of your mouth to keep the pieces gathered together.
Fold the pieces into each other.
This is where the gum starts happening.
Use your tongue, teeth and roof of your mouth to repeatedly press and fold the warming resin fragments into each other.
Chew. Fold. Compress.
Keep swallowing excess saliva when necessary and continue gathering any wandering fragments back into the main piece.
It may happen quickly, or it may take several minutes when you're new. That's okay. Resin chewing is a learned technique.
You have gum.
Eventually the separate pieces merge into one cohesive wad. Keep working it until it feels gummy rather than sticky.
At this point it can move more freely around your mouth. You can chew it, roll it and shape it like gum.
You just turned tree pitch into traditional spruce gum.
Something weird happened?
Welcome to natural resin. Open the problem you're having below.
I only ended up with a tiny piece of gum.
You did it.
If you ended up with even a small cohesive piece, you successfully formed gum. The next skill is learning to keep more of the original fragments together.
Keep your finished wad and use it as a base for your next chew if you'd like. New resin fragments can be worked into it.
As you gain experience, you'll get better at keeping the pieces localized and building a larger wad.
My resin turned into tiny pieces or powder.
The resin was likely bitten or chewed too aggressively before it had warmed enough.
Next time, give the piece more warming time before your first bite and keep that first bite slow and controlled.
The pieces are floating everywhere.
You may have too much saliva around the fragments. Swallow some of the excess and use your tongue to bring the pieces back to one side of your mouth.
You want them moist, but close enough together to fold and bind.
I spit it out and now resin is stuck to my teeth.
This can happen when the resin has shattered and begun softening but hasn't yet formed a cohesive wad.
Rather than picking at every tiny fragment, you can add another piece and complete the gum-forming process. Once you have a cohesive wad, it can help gather the smaller resin fragments.
My gum is extremely hard.
Temperature matters. Cold resin becomes much firmer.
Let it warm in your mouth before chewing. A warm drink can also help soften stubborn gum.
My gum arrived cold from the mailbox.
Let it return closer to room temperature before chewing. Cold resin is naturally harder and more brittle.
My gum melted together in the tin during shipping.
Natural resin reacts to heat, so very warm summer conditions can cause pieces to soften and merge.
Let the resin cool completely. Once hardened, carefully break or shatter it back into usable pieces.
It may not look as pretty as the original hand-cut pieces, but the resin is still usable.
My already-chewed gum became dry or brittle.
Warm it again in your mouth first.
If it remains unusually dry, a very small amount of edible oil, such as coconut oil, can be worked into the gum to soften it.
Why does every batch feel a little different?
Because you're chewing a natural forest material rather than a manufactured gum base.
Resin changes with species, age, season, temperature and its natural oil content. Some batches are softer, some firmer, and some require more warming before they come together.
Natural variation is part of real wild-harvested resin gum.
Temperature changes everything.
Natural tree pitch responds to temperature.
Warm = softer
That's why your gum may feel different in January than it does in July, and why a cold drink can suddenly firm up the wad you're chewing.
Nothing is wrong with the gum. That's simply how natural tree resin behaves.
Your gum can last a surprisingly long time.
A finished wad of resin gum can be chewed again later. Let it cool and keep it somewhere clean and dry between uses.
Can I chew the same piece again later?
Yes. A previously chewed piece will firm as it cools. Warm it again in your mouth and it will soften as you begin chewing.
How should I care for the tin?
Keep the rim clean and dry. Resin dust can collect around the edge and make the tin harder to open, so wipe it occasionally with a dry cloth or tissue.
What not to do.
A note about dental work.
Natural resin gum can be considerably firmer and stickier than conventional gum, particularly when it is cold or during the first stages of chewing.
If you have weak or damaged teeth, loose or extensive dental work, braces, dentures, crowns, bridges, or other dental appliances, consider speaking with your dental professional before chewing a firm natural resin gum.
Education is part of the product.
We don't expect anyone to buy tree resin and magically know how to chew it.
Resin chewing is an old skill. Techniques like these were once learned from other people, not from the back of a package.
When customers meet us in person, we can demonstrate it, explain what they're feeling and help when something doesn't go as expected.
This guide is our way of doing the same thing for someone opening an Alberta Wildcraft tin hundreds or thousands of kilometres away.
Teaching people how to work with the material is part of how Alberta Wildcraft approaches traditional resin gum.
Mastering Spruce Resin
Want to go deeper? Follow the Alberta Wildcraft resin learning path.
Start in the forest
1. What Is Spruce Resin? A Beginner's Guide →
2. How to Identify Spruce & Pine Trees →
Chewing resin
Traditional uses & projects
Traditional Uses of Spruce & Pine Resin →
Ready for your first chew?
Our Canadian Spruce Gum is made primarily from wild-harvested spruce resin, with a small amount of pine resin added for elasticity. Personally harvested by our family and prepared here in Alberta.
Ingredients: 100% Tree Pitch.
3 comments
I would like to order couple of tins please
I would like to order couple of tins please
New to your site, checking it out has been interesting thus far.