Dandelions (2)

Scrub... scrub...

Shu Shu exhaled softly, wiping the sweat accumulating on her forehead. She looked down at thr muddy water, hands moving in a practiced motion of scrubbing the dirt away from the dandelion roots.

The roots need to be chopped and dried for a few days, and maybe even toasted it on a pan. Then, since she had pestle and mortar, she'd need to grind it before boiling it with cinnamon and straining it to produce the coffee.

After a while, she threw away the dirty water and took the washed herbs and roots back to Lu Tai Hu's house.

She entered the modest house just in time to see Lu Tai Hu brewing sencha, the old man's absolute favorite drink.

"Oh, you're back?" he airily greeted, bringing the steaming cup to his mouth to blew gently. "Sit, sit, I'll make you a cup."

Shu Shu wrinkled her nose cutely. "Teacher, you know I disliked that tea," she said in a playful grumble. She then walked to the rack where the herbs were dried under the sun.

Chopping the roots, she idly thought about the teas of this era. Sure enough, sencha was very famous and widely-loved. The art of brewing tea was one of the skills those noble ladies learned.

However, she didn't understand why they would put so much herbs and other questionable things inside the tea. She had drank sencha in her previous life, but only out of curiosity.

The taste... well, she could handle the bitterness, and she rather like the fresh taste. That didn't mean it was her staple drink.

But the taste of sencha in this era was truly, one-hundred percent different. It was so bitter that Shu Shu wondered what was put in. To make things worse, they didn't strain the tea so sometimes those questionable... things... also entered her mouth.

It was not a wonder she hated the tea.

Spreading the chopped roots evenly, Shu Shu looked towards the discarded parts of the plants.

"Hum? There was something called dandelion tea too, I wonder..."

She knew how to make teas from flowers, but mostly she brew chamomile tea and chrysanthemum tea. She wondered if dandelion tea was made using the same methods.

"It didn't hurt to try," she muttered as she set anout to make it.

First she gathered the flower and rinsed them once more, just to be sure. Then, seeing she didn't have the great invention called 'scissors', she plucked the yellow part of the flower by hand.

Then, stealing Lu Tai Hu's hot water, she poured it into two cups filled with the dandelion flowers. At this point, Lu Tai Hu was intrigued enough with his student's antics that he came closer to watch.

"What are you doing, girl?"

"I'm experimenting if I could make tea out of the dandelion flowers!" she claimed excitedly. She also knew the leaves could be made into salad, but she sadly had no clue how to go about cooking those leaves. Maybe she should treat it like spinach?

"You... you detested sencha that much?" to say Lu Tai Hu was amused, was an understatement. He was very much entertained by this little disciple. To think that she hated sencha to the point of trying to make a new kind of tea!

"It doesn't deserve to be called sencha," Shu Shu grumbled darkly. Sencha tasted a lot better than that! Though it's still bitter nonetheless...

Lu Tai Hu chuckled at the grudge he could hear inside her voice. "I see, I see. Then, what is this tea called?" he indulged.

"Dandelion tea," her flat tone and blank face when answering the question managed to pull another laugh from him.

This little disciple of his was just too funny!

"En, don't forget to let me taste it too, okay?" he said before walking away to do his work, shaking his head in amusement and mouthing the word 'dandelion tea' over and over.

Shu Shu watced him strangely before turning back to her tea. She should let it steep for some time. Maybe she could continue chopping and drying the herbs while waiting.

After around a cup of tea time, Shu Shu determined that the tea should be ready. She took out her clean handkerchief and strained the tea.

The water had turned lukewarm and there was a slight fragrance wafting off of the tea. She looked at the tea with doubtful eyes before bravely taking a sip.

!!

"...not bad..." she murmured. It was certainly not as good as the teas she used to drink in her previous life, but it beat the taste of this era's sencha hands down.

Shu Shu was about to bring the other cup to Lu Tai Hu when she spied to jar of honey in one of the cupboard.

It was hard for them to obtain honey as a poor peasent living so far out of the civilization. Thus Lu Tai Hu used the sweet honey sparingly, mostly as medicine but sometimes also as a sweetener for his tea.

She looked down to the cups of tea. Maybe just a little bit of honey could make a difference.

With that thought she went and poured a tiny bit of honey in both cup. Since there wasn't any western spoon--obviously--she used a pair of chopsticks to mix it before hurriedly cleaning them and returning it back to the cupboard. She'd use anything that could achieve what she wanted to do, but if anyone saw, she might get scolded harshly.

"Teacher! It's done!" Shu shu presented the cup of tea proudly. "Have a taste!"

Smiling indulgingly, Lu Tai Hu received the cup. She watched closely as Lu Tai Hu took a sip and stopped to savour the taste.

"En, this is good," Lu Tai Hu finally said with a surprised look, "you made it only with dandelion flowers?"

Shu Shu shook her head. "It was a bit bland, so I mixes a tiny bit of honey. I still need to experiment with how much flowers I need to use in a cup and how long I need to steep it," she said truthfully.

Lu Tai Hu hummed, staring at his cup contemplatively.

"Well, I think this has potential. Since it's made from herbs and only needed it to steep, it's almost no different to a medicine," mused Lu Tai Hu. He had indulged her because he wanted to nurture her creativity and curiosity. He never thought she would actually make such good things.

"I think so too!" chirped a happy Shu Shu, "and, it's just a thought, but maybe, we can dry the flowers the same way we dries herbs? Maybe it'll make better tea...or maybe it'll just ruin the taste."

She slumped after saying her thoughts. Teas were made from dries tea leaves or dried flowers, but she wasn't sure if they should dry them the same way they dried the herbs.

"...It's something worth trying," Lu Tai Hu said after a while. Smiling, he patted her head, "I'll leave it to you to try different things, alright?"

"En!" Shu Shu beamed.

"Off you go then," Lu Tai Hu shooed her back to her work. Watching her bouncing steps until she disappeared to the backyard, Lu Tai Hu shook his head amusedly.

The shy, little girl he first met had bloomed beautifully. Back then, Shu Shu was always afraid of trying new things, afraid of being shunned. She almost never voiced out her opinion, never asled questions, just quietly nodding and following his instructions.

Some teacher might like it, but not him. He liked his student to be curios and creative. The field of medicine was an ever-growing field of study after all.

"Hm, maybe it's time... "