Tea and coffee will result in urination, which isn't a huge issue for me, and I frequently take a thermos of black coffee. You can make cycling energy mix with broken up chocolate, crushed pretzels and salted mixed nuts (or peanuts/almonds) that goes nicely with coffee.
You can also get powdered sports drink mix and make it up with boiling water and carry that. Pocari Sweat works for me, but I think you can get powdered Gatorade. Hot sports drink sounds crazy, but it's just fine. You can make the same thing with those German fruit-flavored fructose tablets and table salt, it just doesn't taste as nice. If anyone is brave enough to dry hot pickle juice, I'd be interested to hear about it.
One really good one is Vietnamese instant Pho noodles, from Asian groceries, that you add boiling water to. They're fragile rice noodles that will fall apart if they're soaked for too long, which is a good thing. Crush the dry noodles and pour them into the thermos with the soup mix, then add boiling water. Like the chocolate pretzel mix above, it gives you carbohydrates and salt for electrolytes, as well as warming fluid straight into your body. Here in Korea ramen cup noodles are in every convenience store and there's always one within a fairly short distance, so you can get shin ramen or even cup of soup for the same effect, warming liquid with simple carbs, but the thermos version is good for lunch if you're up in the hills, away from shops. Plus, because the instant Pho noodles are incredibly fragile, they get all broken up and can basically be drunk straight; they'll just snap if you try to get them with a fork or chopsticks. It's much more like a drink than food.
Last edited by PDKL45; 12-05-21 at 06:59 PM.