Between the bustle of unpacked boats and the first sparks of dinner, there’s often a moment on a canoe trip when the body calls out for something deeply satisfying to drink. Warm and calming or cool and hydrating, sitting down for a drink offers an important opportunity—an excuse—to take a pause, a sip, and just arrive at your home for the night. Something more rewarding than a sip of filtered lake water and yet not quite as committing as cracking open the whisky you’re rationing.
For these moments, lean into a new ritual: Tripper Tea.
Tea doesn’t usually get major credit as an essential item in the food barrel. It’s the quiet passenger, perhaps forgotten between the nourishing oatmeal and the holy coffee. Sometimes called on as a pick-me-up on cool, rainy days, it can also be utilized on warm, sunny days; it’s cheap, light, and can be coaxed into all sorts of morale-boosting forms, regardless of the weather. Below are three trip-tested options that can hydrate, rejuvenate or just mark the shift between movement and rest, camp chores and sleep.
Canoe Chai
Chai has deep roots in India, where masala chai has been brewed for centuries. The blend of black tea, spices, milk, and sweet creates equal parts warmth, ritual, and even hospitality. On a canoe trip, chai brings that same sense of comfort. And some of the ingredients—spices like cinnamon and cardamom, known for antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties—even offer your body an extra boost.
This recipe is for a stripped-down chai, using what you might find in your camp spice kit. The kind of spices that you packed for oatmeal or curry can help take even the oldest, most haggard tea bag to the next level.
What you’ll need:
- Black tea bag (1 bag per person)
- Pinch of cinnamon
- Black pepper
- Pinch of cloves, cardamom or even juniper berries (optional)
- Powdered milk
- Honey or sugar
Traditional chai masala is simmered, but to conserve fuel, just boil filtered lake water and steep the tea bag for 5–10 minutes depending on the desired strength of the brew. Sprinkle in your chosen spice combo and give it a little stir. Condensed milk isn’t overly portage-friendly, so powdered milk will do just fine as it dissolves easily and tastes better than you think when blended with warming spices. Add a dollop of honey or a spoonful of sugar and stir everything together until you get a pale caramel color. Sip away while damp base layers or wet swim trunks dry in the late afternoon sun.
Herbal Hydration
This tea is a go-to when you arrive at camp and you know you haven’t taken in enough water throughout the day. Something sweet, citrusy, and maybe even a little salty to replenish what you sweated out on those long portages will essentially trick you into getting rehydrated for tomorrow.
What you’ll need:
- Herbal tea bag (1 bag per person)
- Spoonful of honey or sugar (or juice crystals)
- Pinch of salt
- Any leftover, slightly squished and not too appealing fruit, or a squeeze of lemon
- A few spruce tips or Labrador tea leaves
Any basic herbal tea bag will do—chamomile, mint, cranberry. A key ingredient is sweetness, but honey can be a luxury on trips, so sugar can work as well. If you’re paddling in spring, somewhere with spruce trees, collect a few of the bright green, tender new growths hanging off the tips of the branches. They’re packed with vitamin C and have a long history of use among First Nations and voyageurs to fend off scurvy. Labrador tea is another optional add-on, used by Indigenous peoples across North America as both a beverage and a medicinal herb, using the leaves to ease colds, digestive issues, and respiratory complaints, and is a gentle everyday tonic.
When wild harvesting, it’s integral to stick with what you know—this is not a time for experimentation. Know your plants or stick to your camp kitchen ingredients.
A spoon of juice crystals, a slice of a sad-looking lemon and a pinch of salt can also go a long way to boost flavor, replace electrolytes, and add a little kick. Steep everything in your favorite camp mug with hot water, add sweetener to taste, and drink slowly, taking in the view and digesting the day’s events.
Sun Tea
This drink is one you should start the moment you hit camp. While everyone else debates where to pitch the kitchen tarp, crack open the food barrel and get that sun tea brewing.
Sun tea is simple: it’s just tea steeped in cold water using the sun’s heat, rather than boiling water. The result is a lighter, smoother flavor that eliminates some of the bitterness you get from hot-steeped tea. But it isn’t a new fad. It took off in the American South in the ’60s and ’70s as a no-boil way to make iced tea, but cold-brewing versions go back much further. Iced tea recipes show up in American cookbooks from the 1870s. People have been chasing cold, lightly caffeinated beverages since around the time the fur trade was ending.
What you’ll need:
- Black or herbal tea bag (1 per person)
- Dried or fresh fruit
- Rosehip, clover heads or raspberry leaves
- Sweetener of choice
Toss a couple black or herbal tea bags into a clear bottle filled with filtered lake water, add your flavors and sweetener, and set it somewhere sunny—on top of an overturned canoe works nicely. Let it sit while you set up camp and shake it occasionally if you remember. After a couple hours, pull out the tea bags and taste. Voilà, Lake (insert Lake Name) Sun Tea. Refreshing, hydrating, and a naturally flavorful, possibly caffeinated drink to top off a day spent steeping in the sun.
(Plays well with whiskey or gin.)
Treat Yourself
Tea may not be the flashiest thing that comes out of the food barrel, but it’s one of the easiest ways to make camp feel like home. Lightweight, adaptable, and comforting, it can easily become a trip ritual. And prepping it fits neatly into that window between getting your tent up and the ceremonial skinny dip to scrub the dried blackflies from your underwear lines. Whether it’s a makeshift spice-kit chai, a spruce-brightened herbal tea, or a chilled sun tea, Tripper Tea adds a small ritual that steadies the day and softens the evening, adding a new rhythm to the journey.
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