Wild Easter Afternoon Tea

By Mel Evans and Kevin Fuller

We are really going to miss whipping up afternoon tea in the woods this year. Hot cross buns toasted on the campfire and served with a foraged tea is the best. Its even better when enjoyed in the woods as the first leaves appear on the trees and the Bluebells start to emerge.

You can recreate this at home however. Maybe you are lucky enough to have a garden space where you can have campfires. If so toasting hot cross buns on a grate or simply on a stick is so much fun and delicious. Be careful though as they do toast VERY quickly. We learnt that the hard way!

If you are not able to have a campfire you could toast them inside and serve them with Wild teas and still feel connected to the outside.

Below are three of our favourite Wild teas using easily recognisable ingredients that can be found in the garden or on a walk. They should all be steeped in hot water for as long as possible to get the strongest flavour, and then strained out. The teas taste quite subtle and if you are used to drinking heavily flavoured drinks you might have to tune in your taste buds. When we do this in the woods the children usually come up with all sorts of adjectives to describe the tastes! Let us know what words you come up with!

Dandelion Tea - Snip the petals away from the green stalk before steeping in water.

Nettle Tea - Carefully pick the Stinging Nettles using gloves (or your mettle) and add to hot water.

Birch Tea - Pick a handful of the young leaves from a Silver Birch and put them into hot water.

When we make these teas in the wood we often boil the water in a Kelly Kettle. This is an invaluable piece of kit allowing us to make hot drinks in any weather. If you are interested in how the Kelly Kettle works then Kev has put together this video demonstration.