Billy Tea

Facts to make you sound smart

A mug that you drink Billy tea in is called a pannikin. Fact!
The word billy has four possible origins. Here are two and a half:

• Australian indigenous language 'billa' which means 'creek'. subfact one.
• English slang of 'billy' means 'mate' or 'close friend'. subfact two.
  • The first Billy cans called 'bullycans' as they were made using 'bully beef' tins. This later changed to 'billycan'. Another fact!

Brewing Billy Tea

Billy Tea is bloody easy. So simple even Mix or Pesky could do it. I'd even let Swampgecko have a try.

• Start a fire.
  • In doing so avoid using a second hand weapon of mass destruction. Try wood, petrol, gas, diesel or some other flammable material.
  • Once the fire is hot and is no longer giving off toxic odors and billowing plumes of black smoke go find a tin.
• Take said tin and cut the top off.
• Take content of tin and tip into fire. Note: Avoid using tins with scary words written on the side and smell funny.
• Make a little handle that will aide in lifting the billy can off the fire.
• Add water and bring to the boil.
• Add a handful of tea leaves to the boiling water and remove from the heat of the fire. Note: This is why you made that handle.
  • Do not. I say "Do not boil water after adding tea leaves".
• Add a gum leaf to the water after adding tea leaves.
• Wait roughly 3 to 5 minutes before swinging billy can.
• Enlist a co-ordinated person you don't like who does not rely on good look for an income to swing billy can above head.
• Swinging billy can around and around makes tealeaves settle to the bottom of the can.
• Pour out into pannikins.

Note: If you find you have heavy metal poisoning, use a different can.

Rich Bastards

• Add your sachets of sugar and UHT long life milk now to stuff your perfect billy tea.

Smart Bastards

• Add some wild bee honey and goanna milk extracts Steve Irwin style to taste.

Big Girls

• Bring along a hot bottle of Pepsi Max

Bronzes Tips for a Really Nice Billy Tea

I suggest when you make your billy tea you avoid burning down huge sections of the country. Make a large clear area before setting fire to anything. When you boil your billy do it over coals and not open flame. Open flame makes soot and bits of stuff I refer to as 'small pieces of shit' into my brew. Don't let small children near the fire, in fact the best cups of tea have small children positioned on the opposite side of a lake, mountain range or open expanse of undulating sand dunes.

If your billy tea tastes like grease, watery baked beans or shit then check that the tea you added is actually tea or the tin you used was actually empty and not being used for something else. Drink it anyway because it will make future cups of tea taste better by comparison. Note it says 'a gum leaf' above. This means one. Not several, not a branch and not one per person. You are not a koala. Just add one gum leaf. You want stronger gum flavor then add it earlier to the brew, not more near the end. Why, because you can have seconds if it doesn't look like an Australia Zoo enclosure in your billy when you go to get one.

One final tip. Tea always tastes like crap the first time you make it cause good tea is an individual thing and your useless at it. You change the brew to the way you want it, and if others don't like it tell them to bugger off or make their own. You'll add as much Goanna milk as you dam well please.

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