Breaking in an aluminum coffee pot

So: I know just about everybody freaks out over aluminum cooking pots etc. There are reasons to think this is more a cultural freak-out than hard science, but the freak continues regardless.

I have a big aluminum coffee boiler ($2 from a thrift shop) that will become a hydration tea maker as I work through the winter tasks on my  homestead. I'll be making tea over my biochar burns. But I know that anything boiled up in "new' aluminum is disgusting in flavour.

My uncle (the mad trapper) has been making coffee over fire in the far North for 50 years. He swears that the secret is to never wash/scrub the coffee pot, only rinse. I assume this is to preserve the patina that acts as a seal against the elemental aluminum. I think if I boil the hell out of this pot with junky teabags it might just "break in" in the same way.

What do you think?

I would use good tea bags or even better, loose tea to "boil the hell out of the pot".  What you use will impact the flavour for hundreds of cups in the future.  Since there's a limited amount of oils per amount of tea/coffee, you might have to do this about five times to get a coating.

That said, with my coffee maker (moka pot), the oils do get an off flavour after a while, so I wipe it with a damp cloth every so often to lessen the oil build up.  

I don't know if the coating protects or not, but it sure helps reduce the flavour of the evil metal.  It's about the only thing in my kitchen that is aluminum and boy does it make good coffee.  I suppose if I could find a copper one, it might be as good, but doubtful.  One day I hope to find a stainless steel lined aluminum one.  

My understanding of aluminium in general is that as soon as the metal is exposed to air, it immediately forms an oxide layer that is tough and (relatively) chemically inert, a process known as passivation. The oxide is resistant to most bases and many acids, but can be etched by plain old table salt. This is where I think it can be problematic in cookware, plus the susceptibility to abrasion by steel utensils, like scraping a pan bottom with a spatula. I've had a lightweight aluminium percolator for about as long as I can remember and it has gone on innumerable camping trips and made countless cups of coffee. It gets the inside wiped from time to time and that's about it.

I have taken the advise of many and got rid of all aluminum cooking vessels over 20 years ago.

I don't know ...

In an ideal world, aluminum wouldn't go anywhere near the kitchen.  

Sadly, life is imperfect, and we need to make the best with what we have available.  The idea of making a protective film seems logical to me, but I haven't seen any studies to back it up.  All I know is it stops the taste of the metal.

In my situation, the aluminum coffee pot will be used very occasionally. It's the only one I have that I can dangle directly over a fire. I don't think I would use it as a daily driver.  (For all other uses including portable outdoor wood stoves I prefer stainless.)

If I'm able break it in to my satisfaction it'll probably end up in the emergency kit in my car. The light weight is a bonus.

Update:

Well it's crazy how things come together sometimes. I scrounged a one-litre stainless steel canteen with a busted lid, hoping that my spare Nalgene lids would fit. No luck, the threads don't match, it's headed for recycling. But it has a good collar where I can attach brass grab wires, and it slides neatly into the aluminum coffee pot! So I can do a double boiler system for my bush tea.