3 Homemade Tea Blends

Visiting shops and choosing from the endless list of tea mixtures with promising names and smells is fun. But how about mixing your own blends? These three are mine, you can try them or use them as an inspiration.

Could not be easier. Mix, put into a jar, enjoy. But I have a few tips for you that you may find useful. If preparing the fresh herbs, cut the leaves from the stems. The stems do not have much taste or aroma and it would show in the tea. Also, the later manipulation with the dry mix is much easier. Lavender is an even more special case. It is bitter. Maybe even too bitter for some people. To reduce this, dry the whole flowers and then gently rub them so you end up with the tiny flowers and get rid of the whole stem.

And, of course, this recipe works with fresh herbs too. All of these have a calming effect and a nice cup of this tea can soothe your nerves before you go to sleep.

This is as red as sunset over a snow-covered field. It pleases with strong fruity and a bit sour taste, and returns warmth to your freezing limbs. It is also a great base for mulled wine! It is fully edible once you are done with the tea but the remains are rather bland.

(stay tuned for a recipe for the candied zest!)

Ever played some of the Souls games? If you have no idea what this means, don’t panic. You don’t need this knowledge to enjoy a nice cup of enhanced black tea. But the looks of this blend reminded me of Dark Souls 2. The difficulty level can be compared to the heaviness of strong black tea. But there are beautiful sceneries with green foliage that make it up to you. The green thyme, see? And the ginger? Well, the game kicks your… hence add ginger according to the difficulty level you prefer. You can’t choose in the game. But you can regulate the spice in your tea!

And how to dry ginger? Peel (remember the spoon trick), cut to small pieces, and let it dry in an airy place. Fully dry ginger is brittle and breaks easily. But it still keeps the stinging taste, don’t worry.

Here is the short story part for this recipe. You can find the whole thing in the stories section. For each recipe, there is a piece of a short story that contains a brief mention of the chosen food.

I don’t Believe, I Know

Part 1.

“Can you confirm that shark is thirty meters long?” The newspaper reporter stepped into his path and pushed her microphone forward.

“Is there danger? How close can it get to us?”

More people circled him, poked him, and barked questions.

Arthur clutched his suitcase, made three firm steps, and emerged from the swarm. He rushed upstairs and faced more reporters.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let our colleague pass!” Dr. Fritz opened the wide lecture hall door and shielded Arthur.

Arthur’s throat became dry. The white-haired tanned marine biologist winked at him and pushed the last reporter away.

The lecture hall was full. Arthur’s former professors sat in the first row. They smiled and waved. There were other marine experts. Zoologists, even a few paleontologists found the time to observe Arthur’s discovery.

Dr. Fritz, a tanned man with a mane of white hair, gave him another warm smile and bid him to start.

Arthur cleared his throat and began his carefully prepared talk about his deep underwater camera experiment. He quickly showed the audience pictures taken before the camera submerged and then the static circle of light on the ocean bottom in the depth of 4788 meters.

“My aim was to monitor the life of these species.” He showed the pictures of three deep-sea creatures on the screen. “And, of course, I have records and almost done documentation about them as well. But one rainy afternoon, something else got my attention.”

He paused. He met the eyes of his audience. Dr. Fritz’s once-riendly expression was not rigid and Arthur’s heart seemed to move up his throat. His stomach tightened.

The audience leaned closer like a wave shadowing him. Arthur’s hand trembled as he pushed the play button.

The greenish-gray lamp circle showed a movement of sand. A huge shadow passed by. Arthur paused the video and explained this was the first warning that alerted him on that sleepy afternoon. Dr. Fritz leaned to some other marine scientist and whispered something.
Arthur let the video play. Nothing happened for five more minutes but he assured the audience the discovery is coming and that he did not cut the video to avoid fraud accusation.

As the moment came closer, Arthur tensed.

The shadow returned. Closer. Bigger. Clearer.

“Can you see the six-gill lines?” Arthur pointed. “Huge, have a look at the length calculation. Also, the shadow of the body shows the skin of the animal could be rather pale.”

The video went on. Arthur paused it a second before the biggest discovery.

“This is another significant moment, get ready, look closely.” He tapped the keyboard and held his breath. The giant fin tip passed the camera. Arthur barely tamed his wide grin. The huge body wrapped in shadows passed by and blurred movement of the thinning tail ended the video. Arthur met dazzled gazes in the first row.

Some people had stern expressions, some frowned. Arthur hesitated under Dr. Fritz’s sight.

He quickly described the fin, played that part again, and let it continue to show the hint of a tail.

Arthur summed up the video and faced the gathered people with his statement.

“I think it is clear we can identify this species as Otodus megalodon. Previously known also as Carcharodon megalodon.”

“Interesting. May I join you?” Dr. Fritz got up in the middle of Arthur’s speech.

“I would like to finish,” Arthur protested.

“Oh, let’s not waste time.” Dr. Fritz waved his hand. “I would like to point out several inconsistencies.”

He walked to the big screen. Arthur gripped his notes. Dr. Fritz played the video again and went on stopping it every few seconds.

“These shadows are a common observation. True, this one is pretty significant. But I think we can blame it on the camera setting. I think the contrast and hue are off here. Maybe the technician’s mistake.”

Arthur’s jaw almost dropped. Dr. Fritz continued talking about various shadows and effects of light in different depths.

“And the gills, well, I see also some vertical lines here and here.” Dr. Fritz pointed around the shark’s gills.

“But you have paused the image when it is most blurred,” Arthur protested.

“I don’t think so. How else could we see the additional lines?” Dr. Fritz eyed him and tapped the shadows. Arthur narrowed his eyes but could not see any more lines. But Dr. Fritz went on talking about them and the audience saw something else than gills as the result. The same happened with the clear fin tip. And the tail. And the whole video slowly turned into a mundane footage of moving water debris.

“We cannot blame young enthusiasm. It is needed for science to reach new horizons.” Dr. Fritz smiled at Arthur. “And our young colleague cannot hide his passion. But we all need to know when to tame our excitement to avoid mistakes. It is very unusual for newspaper reporters, mainly from gutter press, to siege this hall. We are used to working in peace, without the public’s interest. I don’t know how about you, ladies and gentlemen, but I don’t feel secure knowing a bunch of sensation-craving laymen lurk around. Can you imagine the uproar that will follow no matter what happens here? For them, the huge killer shark is already at our doorstep, learned to breathe air, and grew six legs to terrorize the world.”

“And invited Godzilla to join the party.” Someone snickered.

Arthur fell into numbness and heard the audience’s proclamation of his discovery as absurdity from afar. His ears buzzed and he did not move a muscle as the chairs in front of him moved.

“Come.” A hand fell on his shoulder. He followed.

“To the basement,” Dr. Fritz instructed him gently.

He led him through the gurgling cold corridors to a back entrance. A taxi waited there to take Arthur away.

“I am sorry for this,” Dr. Fritz said. “I hope we can talk…”

“Shut up!” Arthur growled and smashed the taxi door. His chest hurt as if someone cut his heart out.

In his apartment, he kicked the umbrella stand and hit the wall with his fist.

They made me look like a preschooler! I’m jobless!

His hand ached and he shook. He kept kicking the stand until it broke. He cried tears of anger in the shower and thought about all lost career advancements, lost grants, and his forever tarnished scientist reputation. His phone showed him messages from his relatives far away in Europe. Even his grandma Anne was interested in his today’s lecture. Arthur rubbed his face. And his mother sent him three messages already. The last one was openly demanding an explanation for his silence.

What am I going to tell them? I can’t answer. I just can’t. I’ve lost everything.

He boiled water with the phone still in his hand. His grandma’s homemade herbal teas pinched his nose with different flavors.

His phone buzzed. Mum called. Arthur’s stomach tightened and he let the device vibrate on the table. The grounded herbs scattered around the cup as he attempted to fill the tea ball. The water steam filled the kitchen with the smell of lemon balm, mint, and lavender. All harvested in grandma Anne’s garden and shipped to him to America with love and support.

I can’t even come back home after this. All the money the family helped me with to get the degree.

Some reporters appeared in the evening but Arthur locked the door and ignored them. He spent the whole night playing video games.

Mum called ten times. She stopped after he sent her a short text about his failure.

The dawn softened the shadows on the wall. Arthur finished his fifth calming tea cup but the herbs had no effect on him.

The doorbell tore Arthur from a boss battle.

Another nosy scribbler. When will this end? Five in the morning, they have no shame.

He stopped the game and shambled to the door. Dr. Fritz’s prominent white eyebrows filled the peephole.

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