Mark Boyle founder of ‘The Freeconomy Community’ is organising a ‘Food for Free Feast’ starting at 4.30pm on Saturday 29th Nov in Bristol. The feast will be served around 4.30pm in Café Midnimo, 163 Ashley Rd, St. Paul’s, Bristol BS6 5NX.

A sumptuous feast cooked by people such as forager Fergus Drennan, star of the hit BBC series ‘Roadkill Chef’ and Dave and Andy Hamilton, the authors of ‘The Self-Sufficientish Bible’.

The feast will be made completely from foraged, skipped and donated food, cooked and organised by volunteers. It is free for everyone.

Last week I went out on a foraging tea party with Becky of the Tea Potential Mobile Experiment. There where about 15 people all eagerly awaiting to sample the wild hedgerow tisanes that abound outside every door.

Becky has taken her foraging tea bike around Devon, up to Bristol and she’s cycled across London and Kent. And as you can imagine she’s been to a lot of places and had tea with a lot of people.

She launched the Tea Potential Mobile Experiment in June 2008, so this tea party was a return to Dartington where the tea bike was originally made.

On all the journeys, she makes an archive of handmade tea bags using the plants from each tea party, while at the same time documenting the plants picked and taste feedback from the attendees. A fantastic insight into our countryside heritage.

During her “tea forages” she’s tried about 20-25 different plants and used them in multiple combinations to make tea. Her favourite being a combination of Rose & Passionflower, but she also loves Meadowsweet and Mint teas.

During this tea forage, which was all of 500 yards, the gathering harvested:

Nettles
Dandelions
Rose
Rose Hips
Rosemary
Bay Leaf
Fennel
Honeysuckle
Lavender
Yarrow
Blackberries

After which the keener foragers decided on the various combinations for our tea party.

With “feral teas” it’s best to leave your brew to steep for awhile. Personally I leave my teas for about 10 minutes, and because milk is not added you still end up with a hot cuppa.

So why is Becky doing this?

Well, as she says in the video she’s very interested in the relationship that humans have with plants, and our knowledge or lack of knowledge about them.

In cities she finds it fascinating that there is so much plant-stuff around us, and that there is a massive amount of abundance, and so much that can be used right under our noses. Plants that are not only good for our health, but also taste good and have loads of nutrients in… but most people simply don’t notice them, choosing instead of buy their herb teas from supermarkets or health food shops.

Personally I think it bonkers that someone would want to buy Nettle tea, when it grows everywhere for free.

Is it just laziness, lack of time or knowledge? Let me know your thoughts by leaving a  comment below.

Even though Becky has just started learning about wild food thingums in the last three months, already she is finding that when she goes out into nature-filled spaces, her eyes are constantly hunting for different shapes and colours and her senses are enlivened by the multitude of smells.

She finds that hosting a foraging tea party is about learning and having conversations with people when you share tea. It’s about hearing other people’s stories and knowledge about plants that might taste good. In a word it’s about “Community”.

Something that has really struck her on this journey, is the way it makes her slow down because there is so much to see all the time, and to stop and pick. And that is what makes it so satisfying, because you know that everything for the tea party is from the environment around you.

A natural slow foodie, I wish Becky well on her plant journey, and should you ever get the chance to stop and have tea with her, I would personally make a very real effort to do so.