Tea Recipes

Tea Recipes

Last updated: May 18, 2026

Tea is the most underrated mechanic in Rust. Every farm, every monument run, every raid benefits from the right tea. This file is every recipe — what it does, how to make it, when to drink it.

How tea works

Tea is crafted at a Mixing Table (Workbench 1 , research 30 scrap at the Research Table, craft 200 metal frags + 100 stone next to a Workbench 1; also buyable at Bandit Camp).

The Mixing Table accepts:

• Berries (Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, White) — the only ingredients a tea recipe ever needs
• Finished teas of the same family and tier — 4 of them combine into the next tier up

A successful recipe takes ~5 seconds at the table. Output is a single tea bottle.

Teas come in three tiers:

• Basic — mixed from 4 berries; mild effect
• Advanced — mixed from 4 Basic teas of the same family; stronger
• Pure — mixed from 4 Advanced teas; strongest, longest

Each Pure tea is crafted from 4 Advanced (which each take 4 Basic), so a Pure equals 16 Basic teas — 64 berries — at the raw ingredient level.

The Mixing Table — where to get it and what it costs

The Mixing Table is the only workbench in Rust that brews tea, and nothing else can substitute for it. You have two routes to one. The first is the free public table inside the Bandit Camp compound — walk into the building near the Food shop and the table is there for anyone to use, no scrap spent. This is the zero-cost option for early wipe, but it is also the riskiest: the Bandit Camp safe zone protects you while standing on the table, but other players watch the table for easy targets and you must carry your raw berries through open road to reach it.

The second route is owning your own table. You research it for 30 scrap at a Research Table, then craft the deployable from 200 metal fragments + 100 stone; the table is also buyable directly at the Bandit Camp Food shop. All-in that is a small scrap and ore investment for a permanent base fixture. For any player past the first day of wipe, owning the table pays for itself within a single Pure Scrap Tea run, because it removes the round trip to Bandit and lets you brew on demand.

How brewing actually works — ingredients and timing

Brewing is a two-input system: you load ingredients into the table's input slots and press Mix. For a Basic tea you place 4 berries in the exact color order the recipe calls for. The order is not cosmetic — a wrong sequence either produces a different tea or wastes the berries entirely, so always confirm the recipe before pressing Mix. A Basic brew completes in roughly 5 seconds; the table does not need fuel, water, or power, only the ingredients themselves.

Tier upgrades use the same table but a different input. Instead of berries you place 4 finished teas of the same type and tier: 4 Basic Scrap Teas brew into 1 Advanced Scrap Tea, and 4 Advanced into 1 Pure. Because each tier is a 4-to-1 conversion, a single Pure tea represents 16 Basic teas = 64 berries of raw input. That compounding cost is why Pure teas feel expensive and why mass berry farming (covered in the horticulture file) is the real bottleneck, not the table itself. Brew time stays short at every tier, so the table is never the slow part — growing berries is.

The complete tea recipe list

Scrap Tea (the big one)

Tier	Ingredients	Buff
Basic	2 Yellow + 2 White berries	+100% scrap from barrels, 30 min
Advanced	4 Basic Scrap Tea	+225% scrap from barrels, 45 min
Pure	4 Advanced Scrap Tea	+350% scrap from barrels for 1 hour

Why it matters: the only tea that scales BARREL farming runs. Important correction: Pure Scrap Tea affects barrels only — NOT containers/crates and NOT recycler. Drink before barrel-heavy farming routes (roads, monuments where you smash a lot of barrels).

Max Health Tea

Tier	Ingredients	Buff
Basic	3 Red + 1 Yellow berries	+5% max HP, 20 min
Advanced	4 Basic Max Health Tea	+12% max HP, 20 min
Pure	4 Advanced Max Health Tea	+20% max HP (100 → 120) for 20 min

Why it matters: raises your effective health pool for fights. Drink before raids.

Healing Tea

Tier	Ingredients	Buff
Basic	4 Red berries	+30 HP healed over 30 sec
Advanced	4 Basic Healing Tea	+5 instant HP + 50 HP over 30 sec
Pure	4 Advanced Healing Tea	+10 instant HP + 75 HP over 30 sec

Why it matters: a one-shot heal-over-time you carry like a syringe and pop between fights.

Anti-Rad Tea

Tier	Ingredients	Buff
Basic	2 Red + 2 Green berries	+15% radiation resistance, 30 min
Advanced	4 Basic Anti-Rad Tea	+30% radiation resistance, 30 min
Pure	4 Advanced Anti-Rad Tea	+45% radiation resistance, 30 min

Why it matters: essential for Launch Site, Train Tunnels, Power Plant deep loot.

Wood Tea

Tier	Ingredients	Buff
Basic	2 Red + 2 Blue berries	+50% wood gathering, 30 min
Advanced	4 Basic Wood Tea	+100% wood gathering, 30 min
Pure	4 Advanced Wood Tea	+200% wood gathering, 30 min

Why it matters: double your wood farm rate. Use during base build hours.

Ore Tea

Tier	Ingredients	Buff
Basic	2 Yellow + 2 Blue berries	+20% ore gathering, 30 min
Advanced	4 Basic Ore Tea	+35% ore gathering, 30 min
Pure	4 Advanced Ore Tea	+50% ore gathering, 30 min

Why it matters: smelt-ready metal frags faster. Pair with industrial smelt setup.

Every tea, tier by tier — the exact numbers

The single most useful thing to memorise is how each tea scales across the three tiers, because the gap between Basic and Pure is enormous and decides whether brewing is worth your berries. Verified against the Facepunch wiki, these are the live 2026 values. Note that the gathering teas (Wood, Ore, Scrap) run for a 30-minute buff window (Scrap stretches toward an hour at Pure), while Max Health is a shorter buff and Healing teas apply as a one-shot heal-over-time with no buff timer.

A few things jump out of that table. Scrap Tea has by far the steepest curve — Pure is 3.5x the Basic bonus, so it is the one tea where pushing all the way to Pure is almost always correct. Ore Tea is the flattest — Pure only adds half again over Basic and tops out at +50%, so an Advanced Ore Tea is often the sensible stopping point unless you are running a dedicated metal session. Wood sits in the middle. The combat teas are different in kind: Max Health stretches your effective HP pool (a Pure Max Health Tea on a 100 HP character means you can be healed up to roughly 120), while Healing Teas are consumable burst heals you carry like a syringe rather than a buff you pre-drink.

How tea bonuses stack

The stacking rule has exactly one line you must remember: different tea types stack, the same tea type does not. Drinking a second Wood Tea while one is active simply replaces or refreshes the timer — it never gives you +60% on top of +30%. But Wood Tea, Ore Tea and Scrap Tea can all run at once, and each applies to its own resource independently. The combat teas layer on top of the gathering teas freely, so a full wipe-day farmer can legitimately be running Pure Wood + Pure Ore + Pure Scrap + Max Health all at the same time.

• Stacks (different types): Wood + Ore + Scrap + Max Health + Anti-Rad — all active together, all timers tick down independently.
• Does NOT stack (same type): two Scrap Teas, two Wood Teas, a Basic and a Pure of the same tea — only one effect applies, and a fresh drink just resets the duration.
• Best practice: drink your longest-duration teas first and your shortest last so the timers expire close together, and never waste a Pure by drinking it on top of an existing buff of the same type.

Which teas are worth brewing

Not every tea earns its berry cost. Ranked by real return for an active player:

• Pure Scrap Tea — always brew. +350% scrap from barrels is the highest-ROI consumable in the game for anyone running roads or monuments. One run pays back the berries many times over.
• Wood Tea — brew when building. Pure Wood at +200% triples your wood income; invaluable on wipe day and before a big base upgrade, much less useful mid-wipe.
• Ore Tea — Advanced is usually enough. The +50% Pure cap is modest; brew Advanced for routine mining and save Pure for dedicated metal grinds.
• Anti-Rad Tea — situational but cheap insurance. Brew a couple of Basic or Advanced before any heavily irradiated monument; you rarely need Pure.
• Max Health / Healing Tea — keep a small stock for raids. Worth having before a planned raid or defense, not worth mass-brewing.

Tea crafting workflow

Optimal solo workflow:

1. Set up a greenhouse (see 05_Horticulture.md)
2. Grow YYYYYY berries of all 6+ colors
3. Place a Mixing Table in your base
4. Pre-craft 5-10 Scrap Teas as your stockpile
5. Drink 1 before each major monument run
6. Restock after every wipe cycle

Total time investment: 4-6 hours of horticulture setup. Total return: 30%+ scrap throughput for the wipe.

Multi-tea stacking

Yes, you can drink multiple teas at once. They stack:

• Scrap Tea + Wood Tea + Ore Tea = more barrel scrap plus faster gathering on a wipe-day farm run.
• Max Health Tea + Healing Tea = a bigger HP pool plus a heal-over-time to top it off before a fight.
• Wood Tea + Ore Tea = +200% wood and +50% ore (Pure) for wipe-day base building.

Watch the buff timers — they tick down independently.

Tea trading

Bandit Camp doesn't buy tea directly, but other players will trade for it. Some servers have an in-game economy. Pure Scrap Tea typically trades for 15-25 scrap, depending on rarity.

Greenhouses with proper hemp /berry rotation produce more tea than a solo can drink. Selling surplus is a meta passive income.

Tea economy — ingredient cost vs payoff

Tea is only "free" if you ignore the time spent growing berries, and the real economic question is whether the buff returns more than the berries you spent. Because a Pure tea is a 4-to-1-to-4-to-1 chain, every Pure costs 16 Basic brews = 64 berries. With a properly tended Large Planter Box yielding 4-6 berries per plant every 2-3 hours, a single planter of one color produces enough for one or two Pure teas per grow cycle. The math below assumes a mid-wipe solo farm.

The takeaway: spend your best berries on Scrap and Wood, never over-invest in Ore or Anti-Rad. Surplus Basic teas are worth more traded to teammates or sold than upgraded into a Pure you will never drink. A clean berry rotation produces far more tea than one solo can consume, so treat the excess as a tradeable commodity rather than a stockpile to hoard.

Common tea mistakes

1. Drinking Basic tier in a Pure-budget situation. Always Pure for serious runs.
2. Crafting tea and never using it. Tea expires — keep stockpile reasonable.
3. Forgetting to bring tea to a monument. Drink at base before leaving.
4. Not stockpiling berries . Grow at scale, sell surplus.
5. Mixing wrong berries . Check the recipe before crafting; wrong combination wastes ingredients.
6. Drinking Anti-Rad Tea AFTER getting radiation. Drink before entry — preventive.

More mistakes that quietly waste berries

• Drinking a second tea of the same type. It does not stack — you just reset the timer and waste a whole tea. Wait for the buff to expire, or carry a different type.
• Expecting Scrap Tea to boost crates or recyclers. It only affects barrels. Smashing crates with Scrap Tea active does nothing extra.
• Brewing Pure when Advanced was enough. For Ore especially, the jump from Advanced to Pure is small — you burned 12 extra Basic teas for +20%.
• Letting berries rot uncollected. Harvest on time and keep a 2-genes clone to replant; an idle planter is lost tea.
• Carrying raw berries to the Bandit table through open road. If you have your own table, brew at base — berries are a juicy target.
• Drinking gathering tea before you travel. The 30-minute timer starts immediately; drink only once you have actually reached the farm spot.

Pro tips

• Pure Scrap Tea is the single highest ROI item for active players. Always have 5+ in your stockpile.
• Tea stacking across families is powerful. Run Pure Scrap + Wood + Ore together so one farm run boosts barrel scrap and gathering at the same time.
• Pair the Mixing Table with the Industrial Crafter — auto-crafter pulls berries from a box, mixing table produces tea, conveyor stores it. Fully automated tea farm.
• Anti-Rad Tea before any Power Plant run. 30 minutes of radiation resistance through the most radioactive part of the game.
• Max Health Tea before any planned raid defense. Surprise raid you didn't see coming, drink it mid-fight if you can.
• Berry -color cheat sheet:
• Yellow + White = Scrap
• Red = Max Health / Healing
• Red + Blue = Wood, Yellow + Blue = Ore
• Red + Green = Anti-Rad
• Always grow Yellow berries first. Scrap Tea is the most impactful.