h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Very nice — this all takes me back to trips (Summer and Winter) on the Canadian Shield, and the wonderfully centering and satisfying brewing of a pail of tea. Paddling the North Shore of Lake Superior, I remember pulling into a beach or an inlet, or even up on an open rock in open water, and organizing a small fire for the express purpose of brewing tea. Nothing could beat it. Sometimes we would ad a few pepermint leaves, and sometimes not.
I am including, at this point, a poem that has been known for years here, and which captures some of the atmosphere that surrounds this billy pail ritual. I do not know where it originally came from: it sounds a little like Kipling, and a little like Robert Service, but it is anonymous.
TEA


From the faucets of the fountain, from the bottles of the bar,
I have sampled many gargles, 'most as many as there are,
But the drink that's first and foremost, if you put it up to me,
Is a steaming can of ashes, swamp-juice, soot and tea.

At the take-off of the portage, when a man is damp with toil,
Heat and deer flies are forgotten when the tea comes to a boil.
In the silent winter's muskeg, when the snow has blocked the trail,
Hope and faith and courage await the bubbling of the pail.

Propped with rocks beside the rapids, jabbed into the forest mould,
Ten thousand blackened tea-sticks mark the campsites of the bold.
Fancy drinks may please the townsman, do to flirt with now and then,
But the silent places witness, tea's the drink that's drunk by men.

-Anon.

excuse me, folks, I've got to go and gather some kindling . . . .
Cheers