8 Wild Teas Every Survivalist Should Know 

Most people think of a cup of tea as a soothing luxury, not as a tool for survival, but hot tea provides hydration, warmth, and often medicinal or nutritional value. Boiling and adding natural flavor to lake water is a good way to encourage adequate hydration. Lake water can otherwise be difficult to swallow. In situations of deprivation or hypothermia, a cup of tea is a valuable survival staple that should not be overlooked. Any survivalist worth the name should know how to identify and brew certain teas.

The most important factor is that you don’t need to bring boxes of tea with you into the wilderness; the wilderness itself will provide nourishment and even flavor. Not all harvested teas will be to your liking, but many of them have a delightful or soothing taste or aroma.

Just to be clear: technically, only beverages brewed from the Asiatic tea plant are considered tea. However, for the sake of simplicity, we will refer to all hot herb-based beverages as tea. Many herbs that are not technically “tea” are marketed and consumed as such, such as chamomile and peppermint.

The following 8 plants can be found in the Boreal and Carolinian forests on the east coast of North America and many of these wild teas can be combined to produce medicinal concoctions tailored to your specific needs.

See all 8 wild teas on page 2