By: Blonde Two

I once induced a near panic in a group of Scout leaders by mistakenly buying decaffeinated tea bags for camp. Things were just as bad a couple of weekends ago, when I forgot to take any tea bags at all up to Dartmoor. Between Mr Blonde Two, Six-Foot-Blonde and I, we had a Kelly Kettle, a jet boiler, two bottles of water, some milk, a teaspoon and three cups; but even after a search of my emergency bags, we had no tea bags whatsoever.

It was Six-Foot-Blonde’s idea that we should experiment with alternative ‘survival’ teas; between us we came up with three options made from our surroundings and the contents of my rucksack.

Option One – Peppermint (toothpaste) Tea
This had potential in that peppermint tea is my tea of choice, and that it would be very good for our teeth. However, the thought of swallowing hot water mixed with toothpaste was too much even for me.Peppermint Tea

Option Two – Gorse (flower) Tea

We maybe should have checked that gorse flowers are safe to eat before we tried this and I wouldn’t recommend such experiments to anyone; but apparently you can make tea (and wine) from gorse. It is an odd brew but I quite liked it; gorse flowers smell like coconut, but taste like peas; so if you can imagine pea-tea, you would have the right idea. I drank all of this one.Gorse Tea3Gorse Tea4Gorse Tea5

Option Three – Hot (Terry’s Orange) Chocolate

If you are cold and wet, and don’t have any traditional hot 
drink making ingredients then this would be a really viable option. Let’s face it, most walkers have chocolate in some form or other in their rucksacks. I am not sure what hot water poured onto a Snickers bar would taste like; but this concoction was warming and quite tasty. Of course, you could always just eat your chocolate!Hot Chocolate1

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