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.
…I…wait…I just…b…
*Gags* “This tea is nothing more than hot leaf juice!”
“Uncle…that’s what all tea is.”
“How could a member of my own family say something so horrible?”
DO YOU MEAN THAT ZUKO NEVER PREPARED A GOOD CUP OF TEA BEFORE BECAUSE HE WAS TOO IMPATIENT TO PROPERLY HEAT IT AND THAT IROH PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER RIGHT THEN AND THERE?
“We’ll have to make some major changes around here!” — His next line which he says firmly, grabbing the teapot and looking at Zuko as he turns.
Like literally after this the main plotpoint between these two is Iroh teaching Zuko how to be more patient/kind/open-minded while also teaching him how to properly work in the tea shop and I just…do you mean to tell me those two were actually not just random meshing plotpoints but were a direct correlation?
is “chai” a TYPE of tea??! bc in Hindi/Urdu, the word chai just means tea
its like spicy cinnamon tea instead of bland gross black tea
I think the chai that me and all other Muslims that I know drink is just black tea
i mean i always thought chai was just another word for tea?? in russian chai is tea
why don’t white people just say tea
do they mean it’s that spicy cinnamon tea
why don’t they just call it “spicy cinnamon tea”
the spicy cinnamon one is actually masala chai specifically so like
there’s literally no reason to just say chai or chai
They don’t know better. To them “chai tea” IS that specific kind of like, creamy cinnamony tea. They think “chai” is an adjective describing “tea”.
What English sometimes does when it encounters words in other languages that it already has a word for is to use that word to refer to a specific type of that thing. It’s like distinguishing between what English speakers consider the prototype of the word in English from what we consider non-prototypical.
(Sidenote: prototype theory means that people think of the most prototypical instances of a thing before they think of weirder types. For example: list four kinds of birds to yourself right now. You probably started with local songbirds, which for me is robins, blue birds, cardinals, starlings. If I had you list three more, you might say pigeons or eagles or falcons. It would probably take you a while to get to penguins and emus and ducks, even though those are all birds too. A duck or a penguin, however, is not a prototypical bird.)
“Chai” means tea in Hindi-Urdu, but “chai tea” in English means “tea prepared like masala chai” because it’s useful to have a word to distinguish “the kind of tea we make here” from “the kind of tea they make somewhere else”.
“Naan” may mean bread, but “naan bread” means specifically “bread prepared like this” because it’s useful to have a word to distinguish between “bread made how we make it” and “bread how other people make it”.
We also sometimes say “liege lord” when talking about feudal homage, even though “liege” is just “lord” in French, or “flower blossom” to describe the part of the flower that opens, even though when “flower” was borrowed from French it meant the same thing as blossom.
We also do this with place names: “brea” means tar in Spanish, but when we came across a place where Spanish-speakers were like “there’s tar here”, we took that and said “Okay, here’s the La Brea tar pits”.
Or “Sahara”. Sahara already meant “giant desert,” but we call it the Sahara desert to distinguish it from other giant deserts, like the Gobi desert (Gobi also means desert btw).
Languages tend to use a lot of repetition to make sure that things are clear. English says “John walks”, and the -s on walks means “one person is doing this” even though we know “John” is one person. Spanish puts tense markers on every instance of a verb in a sentence, even when it’s abundantly clear that they all have the same tense (”ayer [yo] caminé por el parque y jugué tenis” even though “ayer” means yesterday and “yo” means I and the -é means “I in the past”). English apparently also likes to use semantic repetition, so that people know that “chai” is a type of tea and “naan” is a type of bread and “Sahara” is a desert. (I could also totally see someone labeling something, for instance, pan dulce sweetbread, even though “pan dulce” means “sweet bread”.)
Also, specifically with the chai/tea thing, many languages either use the Malay root and end up with a word that sounds like “tea” (like té in Spanish), or they use the Mandarin root and end up with a word that sounds like “chai” (like cha in Portuguese).
So, can we all stop making fun of this now?
Okay and I’m totally going to jump in here about tea because it’s cool. Ever wonder why some languages call tea “chai” or “cha” and others call it “tea” or “the”?
It literally all depends on which parts of China (or, more specifically, what Chinese) those cultures got their tea from, and who in turn they sold their tea to.
The Portuguese imported tea from the Southern provinces through Macau, so they called tea “cha” because in Cantonese it’s “cha”. The Dutch got tea from Fujian, where Min Chinese was more heavily spoken so it’s “thee” coming from “te”. And because the Dutch sold tea to so much of Europe, that proliferated the “te” pronunciation to France (”the”), English (”tea”) etc, even though the vast majority of Chinese people speak dialects that pronounce it “cha” (by which I mean Mandarin and Cantonese which accounts for a lot of the people who speak Chinese even though they aren’t the only dialects).
And “chai”/”chay” comes from the Persian pronunciation who got it from the Northern Chinese who then brought it all over Central Asia and became chai.
So it’s Flu Season again, and this recipe for Tea To Fix What Ails You was given to me by a Christian friend, and I’ve taken to calling it JESUS TEA due to it’s miraculous properties. Even though it, technically, contains no tea. This tea is as caffinie-free as anything processed in a US plant can get, but be sure to check the provenance and all ingredients in case of allergies.
You will Need:
A Bigass Pot, becuase this is something you make in large quantities
working stovetop
those lil cloth sachets you use for wassail/empty teabags/those lil reuseable loose-leaf tea steepers.
Recipe:
about a quart of water
1 cup apple cider
about half a lemon’s worth of juice
a shitwhack of honey- try to get as local as possible and generally the less-processed the better if you want to build a resistance to local allergens. If you have allergy concerns or don’t like the taste of honey, go ahead and use more processed stuff/another sweetener instead.
three tablespoons/three bags chamomile tea
three tablespoons/three bags rooibos tea
teaspoon crushed cloves
1 cinnamon stick (more if you like it spicier)
¼ tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cayenne or white pepper
Bring water to a simmer in the pot. Add the chamomile, rooibos and spices to steep about 4-5 minutes or longer if you like tea-flavored tar which given you have the flu you probably do. Add Cider, Lemon Juice and Honey until dissolved. Drink all of this in the course of an hour to stay hydrated, make more pots as needed or until you pass out.
FOR MAXIMUM EFFECTIVENESS: gargle warm salt water first for as long as you can, it’ll break up the mucus in your throat and soothe the soreness.
This stuff is hecking delicious, and my dad claims it cured his cold. I’ve taken to drinking it just because it tastes good! Thank you for sharing! 😀 I also found that you can freeze this stuff in convenient single serving sizes, ready to be heated in the microwave when you don’t have enough spoons to make it fresh. Granted fresh is usually best for most food and drinks, but it’s still good.
I also calculated a single serving version, which I’m putting here in case anyone wants to make it that way:
1 cup hot water
¼ cup apple cider (or more, I prefer 1/3 cup)
1 tbsp honey (or more, to taste)
a dash of lemon juice
½ tsp spice mixture
1 ½ tbsp tea mixture
Mix the spices together in one container, and mix the two kinds of tea together in another. Measure out of these the above amounts. (Don’t try to store the two things together, the spices will sink to the bottom and you won’t get the right measurements.)
Use a tea infuser/tea bag/cheesecloth/whatever to keep the herb bits from floating off into your drink. Steep for the usual 4-5 minutes, then add the cider, honey, and lemon.
Side note: ground cloves is cheaper for me so I use ½ tsp of
that instead of 1 of whole. I also like cinnamon a lot so I use ¼ tsp
ground cinnamon instead of a stick (also sticks are really expensive here). If you use a stick, break it into
little pieces. The downside of ground cinnamon is that it
kind of congeals if you don’t stir it periodically, so keep a spoon
handy as you drink.
Since people have been asking for this (I guess the flu/common cold is going around agian), have it again, NOW WITH SINGLE SERVING SIZE, THANK YOU @snowfox102 for doing the math for me!
Is it possible to substitute the chamomile for something else?
Pretty much any herbal tea but mint will work? Rose hip’s good, or you can just double the rooibos. You can even put in black or green tea. I don’t becuase those both have caffiene and I want to be awake as little as possible when I’m sick.
What the absolute fuck is a shitwack of honey?
Once tea tarts cooling down* start adding honey. Keep adding honey. Your significant other or parents will notice and ask “Isn’t that enough honey?” “No.” You rasp, throat raw. “I need the magic bug juice too heal me.” “I think we should check your fever again.” they say. “When I’m fucking done.” You rasp, sounding like gollum with a four-packs-a-day habit. Eventually, there will be enough.
that, is a “Shitwhack”
*boiling honey gets rid of 90% of it’s goodness, so let the tea cool down to drinking temp before adding honey.
Just here to remind you to get your flu shot. And tea is not a substitution for antivirals if you do get the flu.
You are completely right! Jesus Tea will only help soothe your suffering, not prevent infection. Also Influenza is hella dangerous and DOES kill people, so get vaccinated for your safety and the safety of your immunocompromised friends!
The menthol in mint tastes REALLY weird with the other ingredients, that’s all. Like drinking OJ after brushing your teeth.
Some other repeat questions:
-If you don’t hvae acess to Cider, regular Apple Juice works just fine, just check the nutritional information to make sure it’s the 100% DV vitamin C stuff, we want you you feel better ASAP. If you like OJ, that can work too.
-Honey is in here specifically for it’s antibacterial and allergy-reliveing properties, and fruit-based honey substitutes will NOT give you the same benefits.
-If you can’t do honey for whatever reason, sub in your favorite non-sugar sweetener because Sugar/fructose/sucrose/agave will mess with the ability fo your throat cells to retain/release water and make your throat feel WAAAAAAY worse. Aspartame, Saccharin and Stevia won’t aggravate you throat much.
-If you can’t have chamomile, pretty much any Herbal Tea or Tisane will work, as will green tea. The exception is anything that contains St. John’s Wort, which interacts dangerously with pseudoephedrine andacetaminophen, whic are in basically every cold medication available without a perscription in the US.
-If you don’t want roobois, any dark and spicy kind of tea will work- rose hip, most black teas, etc.
-I tend to reccomend against anythign that has caffine becuase being concious with the flu is awful and you need to sleep as much as possible.
-If you don’t like any of the spices, feel free to sub them for something else! The point of those is to add a bit of heat/pepperiness to the tea to help unclog sinuses. If you’re a heat fiend like some of my friends, you can put sriracha in there if you want.
-THE SALT RINSE BEFOREHAND IS KEY. gargling with lukewarm saltwater or using a saline rinse will flush out congestion and help the Jesus Tea work it’s magic more effectively.
To Reiterate: Jesus Tea will only make you feel slightly less miserable and it not a substitute for medical care. Get vaccinated early and often, and if you develop a high fever or other medically worrisome symptoms, get to a healthcare professional ASAP.
I’m rebloging this solely for the measurements. A shitwhack of honey
It’s that time of Year again! Reblogging this long version with additonal NoteS:
Where I come from in the US, “Apple Cider” referes to the cloudy brown JUICE you can get in the fall, and is most reccomended because it tends to have the most Vitamin C and Trace minerals. Don’t drink alcohol while you are sick- your liver is already working overtime and alcohol can interact dangerously with cold meds.
GET VACCINATED ASAP!!! PROTECT YOURSELF AND YOUR FRIENDS!!!
If you are sick for more than 7 days or develop a fever over 100 degrees, please see a doctor immediately. Influenza is still a very dangerous virus.
DarkestElemental616 