From FALL 2021

from FALL 2021

fall spiced tea

When I worked in a tea shop, I actually got a few people coming in requesting jasmine tea. Why jasmine? Because that’s what Uncle Iroh would drink on Avatar: The Last Airbender.

So here’s something to think about:

Even though he was royalty, Uncle Iroh was a master of preparing his own tea– even after he left with Zuko, he could always be seen preparing it on his own, eventually opening a successful tea shop when the one he worked at turned out to be awful.

For a firebender, heating a pot of water wouldn’t be difficult– a few seconds of rage and you’d have it at a rolling boil– but a rolling boil would ruin the tea.

The secret to a good cup of tea is often in the temperature of water that you use.

Jasmine, green and white tea tends to need between 160-180* F (71-82*C)– go any higher than that, and you’ll scald the leaves and wind up with bitter tea. Let it steep for too long, and it’ll scald anyway. So you can’t just boil the hell out of it and walk away; to be really good, a cup of tea needs a lower temperature and a softer flame. It needs patience and attention. And that’s where Uncle Iroh excelled.

It was such a wonderful character detail, and I love it so.

tea parties should be more common. let’s sit down and enjoy the afternoon with sum tea n lemon cookies. maybe wear pretty dresses or lovely suits or groovy overalls, yk? in the tea party, we r safe and loved. have a cookie.

fall °˖✧◝(⁰v⁰)◜✧˖°

After reading a few hc where zuko blows everyone’s mind in the fire nation by serving tea at meetings because it’s “beneath him”, I’m thinking thoughts about a world where serving tea becomes an honor, where making tea becomes a pillar in the training of the fire nation and only the best get to hone their skills working at the jasmine dragon, where only those who can prepare a perfect cup of jasmine tea are deemed worthy of the highest ranks, where patience is a virtue and a cup of tea is a measure of worth, a world where it’s said “you want to tame lightning when you can’t even prepare a good chamomille”, a world more focused on the hard-won peace that they all deserve