How frequently do you take hot drinks into the cave?

[tamarmole]

Ok, big question......... what is the secret of good flask tea?  (tbh I'd settle for drinkable).

 

[Ed W]

I have rarely taken a flask or a brew kit into a cave, but I do know that you can fit 6 bottles of Black Sheep into a large ammo box and that they remain perfectly drinkable at Swildons Sump 1.

 

[paul]

I took a small stove once to Camp 1 in the Berger and left it with a stash of hot chocolate packets pending my return. Not long after I left the camp there was apparently a near riot and scramble for my stash...

 

[PeteHall]

Ok, big question......... what is the secret of good flask tea?  (tbh I'd settle for drinkable).

There is no secret to good flask tea. The milk goes funny if it stays hot too long, so it's always awful.  :yucky:

Coffee seems ok, somehow the flavour isn't affected by the cooked milk in the same way. Otherwise you have to take a 2nd flask for the milk...

 

[ZombieCake]

I quite like black tea - a nice full bodied one such as Assam, with a bit of sugar as I like sugar in tea.

 

[Pitlamp]

There is no secret to good flask tea. The milk goes funny if it stays hot too long, so it's always awful.  :yucky:

Yay - one of my favourite subjects.

I thought that for many years, despite trying all sorts of different ways of doing it. I have Rupert Skorupka to thank for encouraging me to keep trying, after he gave me a mugful of excellent flask tea after a multi hour cold dive. It was really good and found it hard to believe it came out of a flask. This gave me the impetus to keep trying and I've finally cracked it. I blend Assam with Ceylon and it involves a proper brown earthenware teapot. The tea needs to be good quality and the milk I use is semi skimmed rather than full lard. The flask is a Lifeventure stainless steel one recommended and sold to me by Shaun Puckering at Hitch 'n Hike donkeys years ago (and still going strong) and it gets a regular 100 brew service involving bleach to remove the built up tannins - followed by several boiling water rinses to dissipate any remaining taint of bleach.

The oft quoted Japanese tea ceremony has got nothing on my own tea making ritual before setting off out caving!

 

[Ian Ball]

Pretty much everytime.

 

[andrewmcleod]

I don't do hot drinks, above or below ground.

Weird, I know

 

[SamT]

On cold trips, I'd take a little billy can and gas stove combo thing, that all fits very neatly into the billy, (not really any more volume than flask) and have a hot chocolate.  Water was usually collected from a dripper somewhere.

The only time I've taken a flask underground was a tiny hip flask with a wee nip in it to celebrate a successful bottoming of quaking. Here's me raising a toast.

Sam and Katie in Gormenghast by Rob Eavis, on Flickr

 

[cap n chris]

https://youtu.be/ih9UjEFr7Yw?t=478

 

[HardenClimber3]

Doing a shift in the main chamber at Gaping Gill (eg Whistle).
Otherwise it is really nice to have in the car for the start /end (or v occassionally somewhere like the middle of the Allotment!)

 

[Ed]

I forgot, I also take flasks underground on call outs for the cas, but secretly hope they won't want any so I can drink it lol.

Thats the advantage of doing The Palace coms spot ----you get to drink your flask

 

[mch]

Never taken one underground. If it's a longish trip and I'm likely to get thirsty I just take a flask of cold water. Usually leave a flask of coffee in the car if it's winter. Do take a hot drink if I'm doing a surface dig though.

 

[al]

I invariably take a hot drink with me when I'm working on something underground (i.e. not on a caving trip) - either black coffee or black tea.

 

[CavingPig]

I've never been so pleased as the moment when, after several hours trying to hold a disto still while surveying chilly low-airspace crawls in Ireland, my companion produced a hitherto unmentioned flask of hot wet (although that meant we then had to do another several hours afterwards!).

I took a flask of mulled wine for an underground walk with my housemate shortly before Christmas, and that was very lovely, imbibing surrounded by pretty white stal. But I don't generally bring anything to drink at all unless it's going to be a particularly long trip.

 

[pwhole]

I drank all the rocket coffee in my aluminium flask before a recent bolting trip and then took the empty flask on the bolting trip. It survived OK, but I won't be able to vouch for its thermal abilities until the next trip - when undoubtedly I'll drink it all before I set off again. Hopefully leaving it behind with my clothes next time. I like to feel my fingers shake whilst I'm working, so it's generally not for sharing.

 

[ditzy 24//7]

In general i dont take a hot drink underground but have one in the car for when we get out of the cave, however i tend to take a bottle of water underground.

 

[tdobson]

I used to go underground with a group of mine explorers, for whom lunch (with a photo) was always an important part of the trip, the more elaborate the better. A flask would be considered essential in such company.

I approve!

 

[Fjell]

What's wrong with cave water? Seems daft to carry water down a wet cave.

Thinking about it, 0.5l of tea at 80degC would cool to (say) 40degC. So that's 0.5x4200*40 = about 80kJ. About a quarter of a choccy biscuit.

0.5kg of choccy biscuits is about one large pack, which is about 10,000kJ.

So cave water plus biscuits beats hot tea hands down.

(Obviously you should never try this in the Mendips because you would die a horrible death from something or other).

 

[cap n chris]

Doing a shift in the main chamber at Gaping Gill (eg Whistle).

Read that wrong. My eyesight's shit.