Washington: Drinking black birch tea everyday can lower your risk of a heart attack just as effectively as low-dose aspirin, but without the side effects of taking a pill, a naturalist has suggested.

The twig of the black birch, which tastes like spearmint is used in muscles to relieve pain.

Self-taught naturalist Steve Brill showed the Medicine Hunter Chris Kilham, the twig also known as betula lenta, and asked him to give it a try.

“It has these leaves with these teeth, (and) it has these cones,” Fox News quoted Brill as saying.

“You chew on the twig, and tell me what you taste.”

Kilham said that the twig tasted like spearmint and reminded him of the compound methyl salicylate, which is used in muscles to relieve pain.

“And it relieves pain,” Brill said.

“The Native Americans discovered (this). It actually tastes like wintergreen. Oil of Wintergreen is the common name. And this is a classic compound from which aspirin was derived. They actually used the willow tree, not the black birch,” he added.