Tea Blends: The Gods of Life and Death

When I asked my friends what they'd like to read about on a blog run by me, one of the first mentioned topics was tea. This surprised me, since I don't normally think of tea as something I have much to say about, but it is certainly one of my passions. I chart the seasons with the types and styles of tea I prefer, tea is my first go-to for all forms of emotional support, I have a piece of furniture entirely devoted to loose leaf storage, and I rarely travel anywhere without a small collection and a means of steeping and sharing. But short of a post extolling the wonders of lapsang souchong (which I'm not above, and might resort to one day), I wasn't sure where to go with that.

Then I forced my tabletop group to sample my latest experimental theme blend, and a friend of friend asked me to ship them a tin of it, and I realized that I can in fact devote several pages of words to the blends I put together on my own. And formally documenting the recipes will make them easier to replicate!

The tiniest teapot I own! Mug added for reference.

I started playing with customized tea blends a little over a year ago. Simple things. One or two base teas blended with some number of add-ins in the form of fruits or flowers or spices. I make different blends based on whatever I feel like drinking at the time, but the more entertaining ones, and the ones I want to consistently replicate, are blends I make for specific purposes. Tea to represent a theme, or styled after a friend of mine, or, quite often, tea for LARPing. (If you don't know what LARPing is, that's a whole different post, but for now go with "roleplaying with my friends in fictional universes.")  

Today I'll share a little of the first and last in the form of themed blends I've been working on for Crossover, a game that starts this spring. Worry not! The tea is delicious whether or not you know anything about the game, and the symbolism is sufficiently universal that I don't think anyone will have trouble following along. Specifically, the fantasy world in which Crossover takes place has a pantheon of six gods, covering the purviews of Life, Death, Sun, Moon, Joy, and Sorrow, and I've been making blends for each of them. This post covers Life and Death, and more posts will follow with the rest. (If you'd like to learn more about Crossover, you can find information here or at the crossover-larp Google group.) 

Faithful Of Life (a sencha blend)

The blend:

For every teaspoon of sencha,

 - 1/4 teaspoon of dried orange rind (You could use fresh zest, instead, though I'd halve the amount in that case.)

 - 1/2 teaspoon of dried basil (Fresh is better, but we were out. If you use fresh basil, shred it, and halve this amount.)

 - a pinch of whole peppercorns
 - a pinch of calendula and a pinch of blue malva, but really add any edible flowers you have on hand!

Steep at ~160°F for 1-2 minutes. Sencha (like most greens) oversteeps easily, turning from grassy to astringently bitter, so err on the shorter end of that scale. If you don't have an easy way to heat water to a specific temperature (and most of us don't), bring your water to a boil and then let it cool for a few seconds until it's no longer bubbling and steaming.

Immediately after adding the water. This tea won't change much in coloring as it steeps.

Notes on ingredients:

 - The sencha here is a Special Grade Japanese Sencha Yamato from Upton Tea, which is solid and meets all of my gorgeous grassy requirements while still allowing me to buy a sizable tin and remain in budget.

 - The dried flowers were a gift, which is why I'm running low. I've yet to find a good source.

 - Everything else easily picked up from the spice section of my grocery store.

Notes on design:
Creating a tea for a goddess of life, I knew immediately that I wanted the base to be sencha. What better tea to represent nature and growing things than a nice, grassy green? From that starting point, I went on to try to create a summer garden. Flowers were necessary, of course, but I wanted something richer and spicier. "Life" and "nature" can be characterized in many ways, but this source material leans most closely to "red in tooth and claw." The usual delicate, floral green blend wouldn't suit this goddess of jungles and violence at all. So I began playing with a variety of herbs, going for a more savory but still very plant-based flavor, and found that adding basil to the tea suited my purposes perfectly. What I ended up with is still one of my favorite tea blends, a balanced, spicy green that looks gorgeous in the pot and is even delicious chilled, which isn't usually my preference.

I don't actually recommend serving hot tea in wine glasses, but it sure is pretty.

Faithful of Death (a pu-erh blend)

The blend:

For every teaspoon of pu-erh, 

 - 1 whole clove

 - 1/4 teaspoon of mint

 - 1/4 teaspoon of rose petals

Steep with boiling water for at least three minutes, and I usually go to five. You can't oversteep this blend.

Immediately after adding the water.

Notes on ingredients:

 - The pu-erh I used here is from MEM Tea Imports. It's far from my favorite. It's weaker and has less depth than most I'm used to, but I can buy it in bulk, which is useful.

 - Peppermint from Adagio Teas, my usual first stop for herbals and fruit blends.

 - Rose petals from Spices and Tease.

 - Whole cloves from the spice section of my local grocery store.

Notes on design:

Just as sencha was a must for a goddess of life, pu-erh seemed immediately necessary for death. Pu-erh is a type of tea that's aged and fermented, and as such easily brings to mind decay and rot. (The tea itself is delicious. Rich and malty with a depth and complexity of flavor that other teas can't manage. It pairs surprisingly well with chocolate, in general.) Beyond that, though, I was temporarily stumped. Something...wintery, probably? So I went to mint as my go-to for making things taste "cold," and added in cloves for their particular dryness and association with fall and winter seasoning. Both seemed appropriate, but the flavor wasn't balanced. At first I thought it needed more bitterness, and that seemed a reasonable flavor to add to Death, so I tried blending in other tea bases, and I experimented with dark chocolate, but in the end the solution was nearly the opposite. I stole the rose petals I'd originally been using for Life's tea and added them to Death for remembrance and mourning, and the result is dark, but also somehow quiet, almost comforting.

This blend grows into a much richer, darker color as it steeps.

So there you have it! Life and Death. Two tea blends I'm pretty fond of and make on a regular basis even when I'm not working on anything for the game or universe in question. As a bonus, it's entertaining to ask guests who've requested tea from me whether they want life or death sans any context. Next up: Sun and Moon!

Cheers!

PS: I love trying out new blends in my glass teapot, so that I can get a good look at them as they steep and appreciate the appearance as much as the flavor, but straining is an issue. They sell these dear little straining spoons that you can place over a mug to strain through, but if you're an unreasonable human being like me you own over a dozen tea pots and various novelty strainers, but nothing quite so useful. So instead I usually cannibalize a strainer from one of my other pots, or better yet create a makeshift strainer spoon out of an open tea ball.

You can never have enough tea strainers. Never.