Adventaggedon Day Seventeen – 5/6
I cannot express enough how excited I was this morning to see a A:TLA fandom blend this morning. I recently rewatched the entire series, and it caused me to rekindle my appreciate for it considerably. I know that Thesaurus has several Avatar inspired blends and I’ve been curious about them for a while – when I was last at the tea house they were out of stock so I didn’t get a chance to check them out.
I decided to brew this up in an antique Japanese cup/bowl that has the image of a little man doing various dances and tasks – it reminds me a little bit of Aang. I also used it as an excuse to rewatch some of my favourite episodes. I probably should have picked some of the episodes that are more directly centered around Kiyoshi but this was more fun.
The tea was okay. It’s fairly ginseng forward, so there’s a pleasantly woody sweetness that coats the palate, and this was complimented by more floral notes of chrystanthemum. It’s maybe a little bit dull?? I think, probably, removing the gynostemna would help a lot. I know that there’s very deliberate things each ingredient is supposed to represent in this blend, but this herb has such a pungent bitterness to it that I think it’s actually dragging down the sweetness and life of some of the other ingredients.
That aside, I just love the direction for this blend. There are so many references to tea in A:TLA thanks to Uncle Iroh – and ginseng tea is actually one of the first mentioned by name as well. I can absolutely see this blend of ingredients fitting into the world of Avatar perfectly. I think it would feel much more out of place if this was something wildly flavoured, so I’m happy with the direction that was taken instead.
Today’s Advent Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmSPlmfOy2m/
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8uUnEGCtGU