The Tea on the Monsters of D&D
So look if I made a major career change it would be to either a writer/designer full time or I'd become a Tea Master. Now you might be thinking Tea Master is a fake thing but I can assure you after countless hours of researching the best way to become one and the fact that there is a freaking school you can go to and get professional certifications from (FYI the city it is in is right by me), its very real and very much a life goal. I will be a little old lady JustKay sitting on a stool behind the counter of a small tea shop filled with fantastical teas decked out like a D&D magic shop running a game. Its happening.
But I decided to take on the challenge, self assigned as it is, to create tea blends that I thought represented the D&D monsters we all know and love. Now this post itself isn't going to be an exhaustive tea book for those monsters though if Wizard's wants to reach out and talk about one I'm right here. See me, here with the thing on the web. I will do a freaking Tea Time with the Monsters of D&D pairing book, heck I'll just do a general drinks and food one if you want. Just saying.
For this post I'm going to be laying down some guidelines that we might build upon in the future. First we will talk types of monsters and what category or family of tea it feels like they belong in. We will talk about how different monster aspects can be linked to qualities we look at in teas. How the method in which the teas were brewed can shape the flavor enough to allow minor variations to go with our monster variants. Why would I do all of this you ask? Well they are probably my two greatest obsessions and it seemed about time to smash them together. Also I might be using this as an excuse to buy more tea because you know... science.
So here is my crash course in what I'm going to refer to as tea families, because just like Whiskey, its a family affair. This is the quickest of quick versions on these tea families so please if you are interested in the subject and would like to chat about them then hit me up, or if you would like to read up on them yourself I'll include some great references at the end of the post. Also to get the giant instigating elephant in the room out of the way there is a difference between TEA and herbal infusions. One comes from the Tea plant, scientific name Camellia sinensis, whose variants create the differences which have allowed for branching families. That is tea. PERIOD. Herbal infusions are a brew created from literally anything else but is missing the ingredient of the tea plant. These can literally be anything. This isn't tea. Its a drink and can be quite delightful, but its not tea. Fight me or don't fight me cause either way its fact.
Now a loose breakdown of the tea families as we will be tackling them are: White, yellow, green, oolong, dark/fermented (which includes things like pu-erh tea) and black. As the briefest of brief explanations for the tea families to help get us ready for the rest lets get going.
White Tea: Minimum treatment of the leaves, generally only picked and withered (air-dried). Harvested in the spring when the new leaves and unopened buds are still covered with the silky white hairs of its namesake. Originates from China's Fujian Province. When brewed the tea is typically pale lemon, cornsilk, or straw.
Yellow Tea: The leaf is picked and heated immediately by pan-firing or steaming though at a lower temperature then Green tea. This retains more moisture in the leaves that are then allowed to dry slowly over a charcoal fire for several days to slightly oxidize. Originates from China's Anhui and Sichuan Provinces. When brewed the tea is typically straw yellow or lemon cream.
Green Tea: After the leaf is picked it is immediately heated by pan-firing or steaming to at a temperature that prevents oxidation. It is then formed into a variety of shapes and keeps its distinctive green color. Originates in China, Japan, and Korea. When brewed the tea is typically jade, emerald, or olive.
Oolong Tea: Picked and bruised so that the enzymes and polyphenols interact which allows for partial oxidation. It is then shaped and heated, the shaping including extensive rolling and twisting making it more processed than the previous teas. A wide range of flavors and fragrances are possible and the shaping process allows the tea to be steeped multiple times. Originates in China and Taiwan. When brewed the tea is typically greenish yellow, rose gold, or umber.
Dark Tea: The most common is called pu-erh, a roughly processed green tea that is set aside to age and mellow. While aging the leaves go through many changes including fermentation and is, therefore, the most susceptible to outside elements.Pu-erh originated in China's Yunnan Province. When brewed the tea is typically peach, auburn, or saddle brown.
Black Tea: This tea is the most oxidized version of the leaf. It is first withered, then rolled to further encourage oxidation by breaking cell walls, followed by firing after several hours of rest. Originates in India, Sri Lanka, and China. When brewed the tea is typically mahogany, copper, or amber.
Now the origins of the tea family, the type of tea plant used and many other factors can shape the same base into an infinity of flavor profiles, and expands further as you consider things like tea blends and additives like dehydrated fruit bits. These changes and potentials will come in handy to us since in broad terms there are about 14 categories that D&D monsters fall under - Undead, Plant, Ooze, Monstrosity, Humanoid, Giant, Fiend, Fey, Elemental, Dragon, Construct, Celestial, Beast, and Aberration. Those are obviously more then we can go over for a single post, and they can overlap in a single monster, so lets focus in on just two for now. Given the recently announced new book Descent Into Avernus I have the perfect two.
Celestials
With many different origins, Celestials are powerful outsiders from the Upper Planes who are generally good-aligned and our glowy counterpart to Fiends. While technically a subset of Celestials most mortals tend to see them as Angels hence the phrase "visited by an angel" in reference to most of these record events. Many do act as servants to deities, or as messengers and higher agents in the mortal realm and throughout the rest of the planes. Included in this family of monsters are Ki-rin, Unicorn, Planetar, and Solar.
Given their nature and position in the Upper Planes we want to hit lighter more open notes with our Celestial teas. We also want to make sure that the base is still forward strong and present given their often terrifying power level. Our heavenly tea should be low in acidity and be a refreshing light drink. Our most likely base blend would be a white/yellow of either 2/1 or 3/1 and ideally, the white tea would be sourced from Yinzhen Silver Needle or similar with the yellow tea being Solar Isle (or similar profile).
Fiends
Our naughty partners in crime Fiends, the Demons and Devils that torment us. They are evil-aligned beings from the Lower Planes who are sneaky and always at war. Demons are widespread, chaotic, cruel, and unsatiable. While Devils are lawful, tyrannical, orderly, true to word, and loving of a loophole. Yugoloths are neutral mercenaries in the war between the two pillars of Fiends. As such they are manipulative, secretive and all about the highest bidder.
For this category, we are going to give ourselves a little more of a scale since Fiends cover three very large families. I want something bordering on harsh, it needs to be strong but shift favor profiles over multiple brews. Let's start with something fairly acidic that we can play with once we get to further refinement through aspects. A large base of dark tea mixed with black in a 2/1 ratio is perfect with adjustments on brewing time for our harshness and acidic scale. Demons being the harshest then Yugoloths followed by Devils. For sourcing I'd suggest Pu-erh Mini Tuo Cha of Menghai for our dark tea and traditional smoked Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong Lapsang Souchong.
Now we have a base for further tea refinement and also I'm realizing just how long this post is going to be...but hey we are in it so powering through! We all know the little additional things help shape the monsters we use. A dragon is a great base but add acid to it and we have a Green Dragon, or add sleep and we get a Brass Dragon instead. So we will use what we discussed above as a framework that we tweak with the aspects. I'm going to be honest and say that there are so many things you can add to tea that I can't possibly cover them all. BUT I can give you starting points for some good directions to go in and some hard stops so you don't ruin your tea.
Let's get started laying out what I'm talking about when I say monster abilities and aspects. These can be special actions, legendary actions, lair actions etc that link to a certain damage type (fire, ice, poison, etc). These can also be maybe an element the monster is linked very closely too like a tundra environment that shapes the creature. If you want to get fancy you can also take into account resistances, immunities, and vulnerabilities though I'm going to say that's probably putting the game mode on hard. For now let's focus on the following damage types in our discussions as examples for you to use - Fire, Lightning, Cold, Radiant.
Fire - What we want here is obvious given the nature of fire we want to recreate that heat, we want it to have spice and kick. It should give you that warming feeling not just from the hot water but the kind you get from some really good spicy food. Ginger, nasturtium flowers, thyme buds, oregano flowers, and peppercorn are all valid options. The fresher the ingredients the stronger their flavors and effects will be when brewed BUT if brewed too long can ruin the tea.
Lightning - For this I want to give the tingles, I want zing and pop. Maybe even a side of sizzle. We can do this through the shock of the unexpected in the brew or through things we add post brew like a squeeze of lemon. For Fire we talked about peppercorns for heat but there is a particular peppercorn called Sichuan (huajiao) that actually causes tingling sensations. The acmella oleracea flower bud, commonly called an electric daisy, is also a favorite of Brazil that would be fun to play with.
Cold - Another one that is more obvious on the effects we are going for, a cooling sensation. Hopefully we can maybe even induce s shiver or two when its sipped or at the very least invoke the images of tundra and snow. The most obvious way to do this is through various mints peppermint and spearmint being the well known of the group. But we also have the option to the less well known like lemon mint and lavender mint. We can also use fennel seeds, coriander, cardamom and saffron as a few examples of spices.
Radiant - Light is probably a strange thing to think about recreating in taste when it isn't linked to adding air to a dish. We want to add brightness to the blend with a light hand since the types of monsters this will most likely be added to already have a light flavor profile that can easily be corrupted. Flowers like osmanthus and lemon orchids can lend and zests can lend an openness to the blend. Pieces of dried fruit like mango and peach can also do wonders to open up the brew.
But first more ground rules, things to not do so you don't ruin your tea. Some things are basic chemistry no-nos like never adding an acid (ie lemon juice) and creams (ie milk) unless you want it to start curdling. Though this doesn't mean you CAN'T drink it, since curdled milk that came from a pasteurized source is safe, its not recommended because it will be like drinking a lumpy liquid. In my humble tea opinion that gives a very distinct experience that we do not want. Some things are etiquette based and I would typically not give a flying rats fart about, but you may want to look into cultural etiquettes around tea if you want to share the experience with someone to make sure you are being respectful. A quick and simple rule of thumb that applies in most case though is to never serve yourself first, and (in places of court or business) to serve in descending order of power in the room.
There are however some don'ts around preparing tea that are more important to us. A big one, that is actually broken a little by dark teas but that is a whole other topic, is not to reuse tea that has been sitting 3-4 hours. After that point chemical reactions in the tea leaves have started a breakdown process that has altered their chemistry and degraded the quality of the tea. Multiple brews from the same batch is fine as I do it all the time, you just need to adjust water temps and brew lengths, but not after that window of time. DO NOT OVER BREW this is how you get an overly bitter, acidic, brandishly strong tea that has destroyed most of the qualities the tea had to begin with. Lastly when you add milk if you so decide to is important depending on the tea base. Milk in Earl Grey will make a bitter brew but that might be to some people's tastes. For teas like Assam, Prince of Wales and Irish Breakfast if you want milk add it before you pour the tea into the cup or again the result will be a bitter brew.
We have a whole list of frameworks so now we just get to have fun! Marry the two things we talked about and experiment! Honestly its one of the best things about tea is how infinite the possibilities are, and how repeatable the flavor is if you know what is going on with your blend. Track the type of tea and the sourcing of it to help keep blends consistent between batches and you are all good to go. I would suggest playing with water temp and brew times as your first variables, only change that until you hit your sweet spot. For each subsequent brew stick with the same water temp but add 3-5 minutes to try and match the strength of the previous batch. Unless it is an oolong, dark or black tea though I wouldn't brew using the same leaves more than 3 times as all flavor will be too watered out by that point. Keep an eye on my twitter (@JustThinkingKay) for specific monster blends as I experiment, if you come up with a good one send me a tweet I'd love to try it!
With that little rambling over with, I’m JustKay your regular DM Dalliance on the web and I’ll see you next post.
PS - If people are interested in me creating a few D&D Monster tea blends that they can purchase let me know! I'd love to help spread the joy of tea around.
PPS - Here are some awesome references for further learning on tea to get you started.