Has anyone perfected the art of making tea taste okay out of a flask? Mine always tastes not great. Or should I just drink coffee?
I drink tea all the time but never from a flask. Satan pisses in flasks of tea ( it's in the Bible). Coffee (ground, brewed in a jug) with a little milk is my essential accompaniment to any walk.
Coffee seems to travel better, or hot chocolate.
Hmm... pre warm the flask, then two teabags (yes, yes, I know) and fill up with freshly boiled water. Leave for 5 mins, hoik the teabags out with a fork, add milk to taste and voilá! Tastes fine.
Are you doing the milk separately?
I think I read it on here but I've been using a Earl Grey tea bag with boiled water. Leave the tea bag in and add two tea spoons of sugar. Sounds uck, but surprisingly good.
Tea isn't good in a flask. The options are:
- Coffee
- Peppermint tea
- Black tea with a bit of sugar
Nothing else works, I'm afraid.
Redbush two teabags. Full to 2/3 with boiling water and leave to brew. Then add cold tap water to fill - otherwise it's too hot to drink.
God, what are we coming to? If tea was good enough for the Rock and Ice, it's good enough for me 🙂
Skimmed milk and not much of it is the best I can come up with. Mind you, that's my standard tea anyway.
No all together, the reason this has come about is I'm doing some online training this week with barely any breaks and I've had to make a flask of tea but it's just not great at all!
Instant tea (yes, it exists) or bag plus water from flask and milk from small nalgene.
The milk cooks when kept hot. There is probably an optimum where you let it cool and then put in the flask.
Either way the flask is harder to clean from tea or coffee, so I use milk, bag and hot water. Or Brukit (alpkit) plus water, bag, milk.
> No all together, the reason this has come about is I'm doing some online training this week with barely any breaks and I've had to make a flask of tea but it's just not great at all!
It won’t taste nearly as good indoors….
More practically, how clean is your flask? Leaving it overnight with a solution of sodium bicarbonate will freshen it up no end. Rinse well and fill with hot beverage of choice!
I've found that Redbush/rooibos tea with a teaspoon of maple syrup added tastes the best in a flask
> Tea isn't good in a flask. The options are:
> - Coffee
> - Peppermint tea
> - Black tea with a bit of sugar
> Nothing else works, I'm afraid.
I was introduced to root ginger a few years back. It tasted really good .
I tend to sugar a flask of tea. Always brew it strong with a Yorkshire tea bag.
The only way to get flask drinks to taste good is hot water only in the flask, so there aren't any flavours to get tainted, and carry tea bags (and/or coffee, hot chocolate) + small Nalgene bottle of fresh milk + spoon separately.
Stick a dram or two of whisky in it. No need for single malt - blended will be fine. As a bonus, the disinfectant properties prevent any lingering taste taint.
I think it’s the milk that spoils both tea and coffee in a flask. Take milk separately or use coffeemate. Even better, fill flask with boiling water and take instant coffee and powdered milk to mix in the field. A separate advantage is that your flask doesn’t need washing out. But if that’s too much trouble black tea with sugar is ok in a flask.
Oh God, I am supposed to clean my twentieth century flask out properly? All I do is rinse it when I get home. More jobs to be done (sob).
My lazy option of choice is a herbal tea bag chucked in the flask then fill with hot water.
> Tea isn't good in a flask. The options are:
> - Coffee
> - Peppermint tea
> - Black tea with a bit of sugar
> Nothing else works, I'm afraid.
Hot blackcurrant
Also, metal vs glass vacuum flask. I think the metal ruins the tea quicker than glass. And if you leave out the milk as someone says, you get this horrible film that sticks to the side, is hard to clean, and puts bits in your tea.
> No all together, the reason this has come about is I'm doing some online training this week with barely any breaks and I've had to make a flask of tea but it's just not great at all!
Ah - someone I used to work with just made a mug of tea in a huge insulated mug, so it kept warm. I've also seen USB hotplates to plug into your laptop to put a normal mug on!
My wife likes a hot cup of redbush if we go out, but I take a flask of hot water and a couple of tea bags and make it on demand - she doesn't like it over-brewed.
Black Earl Grey for me. It's obviously not as good as a freshly made cup but it's still perfectly drinkable (assuming you like black Earl Grey).
> Tea isn't good in a flask. The options are:
> - Coffee
> - Peppermint tea
> - Black tea with a bit of sugar
> Nothing else works, I'm afraid.
Bovril
Whisky is a good shout for the hill, probably not a good idea for work though. Green tea with a spoonful of honey is my standard, in fact I’m drinking some now, from a flask. A clove or two dropped into black tea transforms it assuming you like that sort of thing.
> Has anyone perfected the art of making tea taste okay out of a flask? Mine always tastes not great. Or should I just drink coffee?
Milk in a separate small flask (e.g. I use a 330ml Klean Kanteen insulated bottle) works for me. Also never put coffee in a tea flask, you never quite get rid of the taste. Also make it quite strong.
It's milk that goes ick in flasks, the reason you don't notice it with coffee is because the taste is so strong.
> The only way to get flask drinks to taste good is hot water only in the flask, so there aren't any flavours to get tainted, and carry tea bags (and/or coffee, hot chocolate) + small Nalgene bottle of fresh milk + spoon separately.
Tea tastes manky if not made with water immediately off the boil. Would work for coffee, but coffee tastes fine from a flask.
I'm guessing you're one of those odd people who puts milk in first when making tea in a cup. Those people will never understand what tea is meant to taste like. Milk first is only when pouring tea from a pot into china, to prevent cracking.
I dunno about long distance travelling, but I used to make a flask of tea (with milk & sugar) the night before dawn fishing trips. It tasted a bit fruitier than normal but was still good and no problem to clean. Flask was glass. I'd never recommend taking milk on walks as scouting experience shows it tends to turn to butter from being sloshed around all the time.
In Norway and parts of the alps it's normal for mountain huts to supply hot fruit tea at breakfast for you to put in a flask.
Regular black-tea-with-milk always tastes awful out of a flask to me, even if you add the milk later.
My choices are:
Black lapsang souchong
Rooibos/redbush with a bit of honey
Ginger tea (better made with stem ginger than a teabag) with bit of honey
Hot blackcurrant squash
Hot ginger cordial (when I don't have stem ginger to hand)
If you're stooping to the Earl Grey level you might want to consider this alternative because it tastes better: use about 20 pence worth of copper coins, preferably dull grimey looking ones and one mint imperial, place coins in the flask, pour on boiling water, add mint. For added flavour use the water from a puddle located in a scrap yard.
> No all together, the reason this has come about is I'm doing some online training this week with barely any breaks and I've had to make a flask of tea but it's just not great at all!
It's the milk that makes flask tea taste funny. If you can keep the milk separate until the point of drinking it, it will be fine.
I quite like flask tea, provided that's what I'm expecting. It's like instant coffee & real coffee: they're different drinks.
I take the hot water and tea bags and milk separately, and make each cup when I want one. It's 'a nice little ritual' too, but maybe not for a Scottish blizzard or something, in my early teens, we walked up The Band in the Lake District, and it was so windy the hot water poured from my Dad's flask came out horizontally, though when I think of it, complications could happen even if it was already brewed in the flask, unless you drank from it.
> My lazy option of choice is a herbal tea bag chucked in the flask then fill with hot water.
That's my option of choice even not being lazy. When I carry a flask it's mainly so I can have a hot drink to warm up and rehydrate and it's just enough to give the hot water a bit of flavour.
I have made black tea in my flask today with a little cup of milk and the tea has been great. (at my desk) I think for the hill I'll get a little bottle. Now to determine how much milk I need for a litre of hot tea ha.
Thanks for all the suggestions on such a serious topic!
It's because the milk is hot for a long time it changes (a bit like UHT changes the taste)
On a hill you really should (maybe: shouldn't!) be drinking Chisky (aka Percy), which is 50:50 Grants Morella Cherry Brandy (or substitute... Lidl make a very own brand alternative) and traditionally... a non peaty single Malt, but I think that's just a waste, just go for something relatively smooth and easy drinking (Chivas Regal is the gold standard for this drink IMHO, but whatever you have in the cupboard really) This is not just a drink of elderly red faced toffs and gamekeepers, try a small hipflask of this next time you're out on the hill in foul weather, just keep consumption very slight and not mixed with driving! You can tolerate a lesser flask of tea, if you have a small sip of Chisky afterwards
Yeah as a few others have already said, carry the milk separately in a little bottle. It's always better.
For cold days, Pukka 3 ginger is my go to as it's hot and also gives you a nice spicy kick.
If you've got a stainless flask, best way I've found to clean it out is citric acid. You can get a box from Wilkos for less than £2 I think. Overnight it in the flask with hot water and it will look brand new.
milky tea - bleuurgghhh
I drink loads of coffee but not from a flask.
Preferred hill/crag hot drinks for cold weather are:
One ginger and one cinnamon teabag - teaspoon of honey optional
Ribena with a ginger teabag chucked in
Vimto with a ginger teabag chucked in
All much better than a manky stewed version of tea or coffee.
I tend to just suffer the satan-piss-flask-tea.
It makes the first fresh cup when you get home taste even better.
The weight of a Pocket Rocket or JetBoil, 4 tea bags and 100mls milk is less then a flask of tea. Problem solved.
My partner puts two Earl Grey and two English breakfast tea bags, plus freshly cut turmeric and ginger in her flask.
Too strong for me, but she loves it.
I go for one redbush teabag.
For a refreshing drink when in the Alps in summer, put tea into a metal water bottle with either mint or lemon + sugar to taste. Push into the snow for a few minutes to chill, then drink. Lovely!
In Scottish winter either hot Vimto or soup!