Cocoa, Tea and Coffee

[BIG-TARGET]

Well, if you have that swedish mess kit, like Viking's, hot soups and drinks on the trail should be braindead easy!! :biggthump

 

[Nightfall]

Hi clem. Yerba mate is a herb from South America. The Gouchos [sp] drink it like coffee. My favort has a choclate flavor. It has a good amount of caffein and antioxidans. One real good thing about it is that it dont need hot water to brew. You can just drop it into a water bottel and it seeps.

 

[tomtom]

has any one had the yannow(sp) made from acorns i think get it in helth food shops its like instant coffee

 

[leon-1]

has any one had the yannow(sp) made from acorns i think get it in helth food shops its like instant coffee

Nope, I've tried the dandelion root coffee substitute though, that's not bad and that was available at Holland & Barrett

 

[Moonraker]

Abbe and Jake I will invite you to come to my house and have a proper cup of coffee. Instant is just rubbish in comparison to a decent espresso. I was in italy recently and every cafe had the best cappuccio and espresso you could hope for.

Bill

Totally agree Bill. Heathens After a meal there is nothing better. Or for breakfast with some nice pastries in the local bar . In France is not an option to drink anything else (well like every country people do drink it at home now but if you served it in a bar or restaurant you would be hung from the nearest tree .

I understand the practicalities of teabags and instant but really the moral boost you get from the smell and taste of real coffee and tea has to be a big plus. Like the smell of frying bacon for me

I have a couple of options you may want to try out for this which I will post tomorrow.

Also don't forget picking your own tisane (infusion of e.g. dried or fresh flowers or leaves). I pick them and dry them at home then take them out for convenience but you can get some great flavours outdoors fresh. My favourite and a real common option in North Africa, Turkey etc is mint tea. Just pick some nice watermint (or any other kind but checking toxicity etc), shred it up, add some sugar (usually brought very sweet) and add to a mug. Add 'boiling water' and drink very hot. Very refreshing in hot weather I find and why it is drunk in these regions.

A lot of people from the village pick bunches of Lime flowers in the summer for this. Helps a lot of things apparently and helps you sleep

Gary, do you mix your own Mocha or use packet stuff? Would you not get the same energy just from adding more sugar to coffee or tea?

Also is there a potential problem drinking tea/ coffee brews in that they are both diuretics and make you pee and so requiring more water to be carried?

 

[CLEM]

Hi clem. Yerba mate is a herb from South America. The Gouchos [sp] drink it like coffee. My favort has a choclate flavor. It has a good amount of caffein and antioxidans. One real good thing about it is that it dont need hot water to brew. You can just drop it into a water bottel and it seeps.

Thanks for explaining mate,as i said i had never heard of it before.As it happens i drink allmost everything except tea and coffee,mostly water and good beer.I have to admit i have often kind of felt that i miss out when you tea and coffee drinkers get a brew on,ive just never took to the taste.I will keep an eye out for both the yerba that you mentioned and the mocha mentioned by Gary.

 

[match]

I tend to find that any hot drink is always satisfying when outside!

I tend to like tea and coffee equally - and if I'm camping anywhere for a while i tend to take my storm kettle along - vast quantities of hot water very easily!

For coffee, I use one of the espresso pot things that you can get in cookery shops etc - they're quite cheap (usually about 10 quid), and designed to be used on a gas/electric hob, and so work fine as long as you keep the handle out of the flames, without needing to buy an equivalent device marked as a 'special outdoors espresso pot' from a camping shop. For an example, see:

Stove-top one person espresso pot

The other good thing is that you can keep using this when you're at home to make high-quality coffee in the same time it takes to make instant!

As well as tea/coffee, I often like to make use of whatever is nearby for refreshing drinks - elderflower, mint, yarrow, lemon balm, angelica and thyme are all wild plants which I have found and made teas from while camping - I'm sure there are more I've forgotten.

I guess the only recommendation I would make is to learn to like your drinks without milk or sugar - as these are the most difficult things to find when you're in the middle of nowhere!

 

[Nightfall]

Dont forget pine needle tea. Take a handful of needles and seep in hot but not boiling water. Full of vitamen C.

 

[NickBristol]

Another vote for Mocha here :wave: Cant beat it on a cold or wet day... which covers most days in the UK Also, crumbling a biscuit into the sludgy coffee / chocky bit at the bottom of the cup makes a nice little snack

Have never got on with tea in the field for some reason. Always tastes like boiled pond water to me.

As for coffee, I use coffee bags from Lyons. Each bag is foil sealed to prevent it being spoiled by water ingressing into your kit. It tastes like proper filter coffee, especially good if you use condensed milk (from a squeezy tube, about 80p from the supermarket) to whiten and sweeten it. Plus if you dry out the bag afterwards it'll burn for ages as a tinder as it's twice the size of a teabag

 

[EdS]

If camp is set up - mulled cider.

 

[Keith_Beef]

What in the Sam Hill is Yerba(allways wanted to say that),but really what is it, ive never heard of it.

Yerba Mate is dried and crumbled leaves of ilex paraguayensis , a South American cousin of our Holly. You put it into a mug (or into a wooden mug called a "bombilla"), pour on boiling water, and leave it to steep. You can add milk and sugar, if you like. Instead of straining it, you drink it through a thing called a "pipa", like a metal tube with a ball-shaped strainer on the end.

It's a very popular drink in Argentina and Central/Southern Chile (where my bombilla and pipa came from).

Keith.

 

[JakeR]

Dont forget pine needle tea. Take a handful of needles and seep in hot but not boiling water. Full of vitamen C.

Have you gotta be careful with that? Are all pine's cool? Or are there any poisonous similiar ones?

 

[Nightfall]

Any pine can be used. I never gather any needles near roads or anything like that now.Always look for the cleanest needles. I was taught to use the whole needle but have read to chop the needles up fine when seeping them. I also always use the conifers that have long needles if you know what I mean.

 

[tenbears10]

Abbe: let me know if you are over here for that Java.

Tom: I've got one of the espresso makers you linked to.

Match: those make a bit more coffee than tom's one. They are good for home, as good as some much more expensive machines IMO.

Bill

 

[match]

Match: those make a bit more coffee than tom's one. They are good for home, as good as some much more expensive machines IMO.
Bill

I've been quite lucky in that I've managed to get hold of a very small one, from a charity shop no less, for a few pounds. The one I've got makes a small mugful of espresso strength coffee, which is a good amount for me - but then I do like my coffee strong

The other advantage of this style of pot for outdoor use is that they are very resilient - a friend of mine has had his for over 10 years, and has been backpacking and camping round most of Europe, and it still works. His does have a metal handle though, which means you can worry less about where you chuck it in the fire!

 

[Abbe Osram]

Have you gotta be careful with that? Are all pine's cool? Or are there any poisonous similiar ones?

hi mate,
the SAS survival handbook says that the buds and shoots of the Tamarack and Hemlock are Poisonous.

cheers
Abbe
ack:

 

[Abbe Osram]

Abbe: let me know if you are over here for that Java.

Tom: I've got one of the espresso makers you linked to.

Match: those make a bit more coffee than tom's one. They are good for home, as good as some much more expensive machines IMO.

Bill

tenbears10; thanks for the invitation sure I will visit you when I am in the neighborhood.

:chill: ABBE

 

[Womble]

Pear and Guava herbal tea and spiced cider is a wonderful combination.

 

[Nightfall]

Should have said that the only needles that I'd use is from trees of the Pinus species.

 

[george]

Very fond of lime tea - as in tea made like lemon tea but with lime juice instead - brilliant thirst quencher and I can drink gallons of it.

Mind you in the evening I'm fond of a dram or two of decent whisky or a coffee with a decent measure of rum in it

George