Hot Drink Thermos, Packed at Camp
Fill a vacuum flask at breakfast and drink hot tea six hours later on the trail.
- calories
- 120
- weight
- 1.2 oz
- cal / oz
- 100
- protein
- 1 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 6 min
- total time
- 8 min
- water
- 470 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Drink
- Canister stove
- Campfire coals
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Day hike
- Winter / snow
- Car camping
- Bikepacking
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Loose black tea or two tea bags | 2 tsp | |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 2 tbsp | brown sugar dissolves fine and tastes less flat |
| Powdered ginger | 1/4 tsp | optional, does most of the warming work in winter |
| Salt | a pinch | cuts the sweetness and replaces some of what you sweat out |
| Water | 470 ml |
Method
- Preheat the flask: pour in a splash of boiling water, cap it, shake, dump it. Skipping this costs you an hour of heat.
- Boil 470 ml of water in your pot.
- Add the tea, sugar, ginger, and salt to the pot and pull it off the heat. Steep four minutes, no longer, or it turns bitter and stays bitter all day.
- If you used loose tea, strain it through a sipper lid filter or a bandana as you pour. Leaves left in the flask keep brewing.
- Fill the flask to within an inch of the rim, seal it, and put it upright in a side pocket.
This is less a recipe than a use for the heavy thing in your pack. A vacuum flask costs you eight or ten ounces of dead weight, and it only earns that back if you fill it at the one moment the stove is already running. Breakfast is that moment. You boil once, drink half, and carry the other half hot to a ridge where you would not want to set up a stove.
The preheat step matters more than the recipe. Cold steel pulls heat out of the first cup and you never get it back. Straining also matters: tea left sitting on its leaves in a sealed flask is undrinkable by noon. Sugar and salt are there for the walking, not the flavor.
Packing
Premix tea, sugar, ginger, and salt into one small bag per fill. A double-walled flask around 350 to 470 ml holds hot for roughly six hours and cold for twelve, which is the whole point of carrying the extra steel.
Variations
- Swap the tea for instant coffee and skip the steep entirely.
- Cocoa powder and sugar instead of tea makes a winter version worth the weight.
- Fill it with cold water and lemon powder in summer; the insulation runs both directions.
https://instacuppastore.com/products/vacuum-insulated-coffee-tea-travel-mug-order-online-1