Fill the electric tea machine’s kettle to the max line with filtered water.
There are an almost comedic number of ways to acquire filtered water in our kitchen. The freezer door dispenses water, though Mistress doesn’t like it. So does our standalone water dispenser machine—at three temperatures. So does the drinking water faucet next to the sink, more convenient to leave something under to fill. So does the filtration system under the sink with the long tube, which is more for slowly filling large containers—like the ones that go into the standalone machine, or that I bring for hosting the TNG munch.
Using the machine is slightly faster, though you have to stand there holding the button—there is no leaving the kettle. It makes me feel more like I’m doing something, holding the rising weight of the water, listening to it running, watching for the moment it reaches the line. But it usually makes the most sense to multitask while the kettle’s filling, the running water almost silent in the background, try to come back to it at the right moment—or, worst case, dump out a tiny bit of water.
Into the tea strainer:
Masala Chai: 2 Scoops
Irish: 3 Scoops
Scottish: 2 Scoops
While the kettle fills, I check that the strainer is empty and clean, and take two scoops out of the first tall glass jar of tea, with the chalkboard sticker label for Masala Chai. Three from the one labeled simply Irish—back when Mistress mostly drank coffee, and occasionally tea using tea bags, it was just Irish Breakfast Tea—and, two for the one simply labeled Scottish. The first is multicolored; the latter two, darker, and very similar looking. The first scoop or two makes a little metallic pling hitting the bottom of the strainer, and I can already smell the tea.
Lavender: 3 Pinches
Rose Petals: 2 Pinches
Cacao Nibs: 1 Pinch
Half Cinnamon Stick
The scoops are all the same, but Mistress made sure we were on exactly the same page about pinches when she showed me the measurements, as far as the ingredients that come from the smaller jars.
The lavender flowers, whole, are tiny, several of them fitting in between my fingers, and are, as you’d expect, the color that’s named after them. They scatter when I drop them on top of the tea. They smell less and less strong to me, as I’ve started using lavender oil in the humidifier in the bedroom, becoming desensitized to it. The name, though, brings back well over a decade of associations for me—a main character I write by the same name.
The rose petals are bigger, dried, with a crunchy sound and more gravity to them, mostly a pinkish red, but with yellowish parts, too. They look more like flowers to me. I find them subtle and sweet, even though I find the rose scented candle Mistress made strong.
The cacao nibs (which I wasn’t sure of how to pronounce until I mentioned that fact to someone at a conference I was teaching at) are also tiny, but harder than the lavender, almost like tiny rocks, and a grayish brown color. The jar smells like chocolate when I open it, but, once, pondering my taste for various dark chocolate percentages out loud, Mistress told me to try some of them straight, and they just didn’t taste like much to me.
Half of a cinnamon stick, stored in a slightly larger jar. They’re solid and can be hard to break, and I tend to try to find one that’s the average size, but thin enough for me to have no trouble breaking in half with just my fingers, getting that satisfying snap. They look kind of rolled, and some have more or different layers than others, but all are roughly the same medium brown, and have the same distinct smell.
Tea Strainer, Lid, Lid, Lock
Herbal Setting
I insert the tea strainer into slot in the top of the kettle, place its lid on it, place the lid to the machine on, and twist it into the lock position, then set it onto the machine’s base.
I hit the herbal setting button. It’s labeled for seven minutes, but that’s just steep time, not counting the boiling of the water—I know I can set my phone alarm for twelve and a half minutes to come back almost exactly when it’s actually done, giving a final, barely audible beep. I don’t always set the alarm, if I’m in the kitchen anyway and know I’ll be there when it’s ready. But if I need to be drawn back to the kitchen amidst other tasks and distractions, and I know Mistress is eager for the tea, I take the alarm with me.
Open, Drain Strainer
Warm Pot
When it is ready, I twist the kettle’s lid into the unlocked position, remove it. The tea smells sweet and is a reddish brown at this point. I remove the tea strainer, and drain it—usually turning it mostly upside down while carefully keeping the lid in place where my hand won’t get burned—into the kettle, more dripping water sounds. I replace the lid and lock it again.
I might have prepped some of the next stages while the machine was doing its work, or—depending on what other tasks were at hand, like cleaning the kitchen—might not have.
But now I warm the big blue teapot—already cleaned, I rinse it out again with hot water from the standalone machine. It’s the one step I added to the ritual that Mistress didn’t explicitly specify, though I’ve seen her do it in certain situations, too, when she was still experimenting with the recipe or whatnot. After years of getting her coffee, I didn’t get to make her tea after she made the switch until she ironed out the details. Then, finally, she trained me in how it was done; I took the notes and she approved them.
10 Sugar Cubes
I place ten sugar cubes from the container into the little white creamer pitcher. Plink, pink… They’re mostly hard, but some of them chip a corner when they hit the bottom. As a longtime Hunger Games fan, I must think of the reference.
I always double check there are ten, mostly by visually grouping them into groups of three, then making sure there’s one extra. I don’t know why my brain decided it was three threes and one, instead of twos or fives, actual factors of ten.
Then, I pour a large splash of the tea over them, and stir with a teaspoon until the sugar’s all dissolved, and pour the contents of the little pitcher into the big blue teapot.
2 Teaspoons of Honey
I think dissolving the honey is my favorite part of the ritual. I take one teaspoon of honey out of the small jar, drop it into the little creamer pitcher, sweet and oozing, amber colored. A little probably remains on the teaspoon when I take the second one, and just leave the honey covered spoon in the creamer pitcher. I pour a large splash of the tea in (making sure the spoon isn’t at an angle where it will make it go everywhere). Then, stir until it’s dissolved. I can feel the mixture go from thick and slow to feeling nearly like it’s water, pulling the spoon back out miraculously clean of honey. It’s so satisfying.
Then, I pour the contents of the creamer pitcher into the big teapot.
Splash of Milk
It’s controversial, probably, but it’s just two-percent milk. Mistress tried other substitutes. But she didn’t go through enough—only using a splash per forty ounce pot of tea, which she averages two of per day—for us to buy it in large quantities, paying more for less so it didn’t go bad, and struggling to keep the right amount in stock. On the other hand, my beverage of choice is two-percent milk. It’s the only thing I consistently drink other than water, and I generally purchase about two gallons per week (three isn’t unusual). It was always handy, so she got used to it.
For this step, tea first. I pour some into the creamer pitcher. Then a large splash of milk, pulling the gallon in progress out of the fridge, then replacing it.
I noticed, trying to pin down what large splash of milk meant when Mistress was showing it to me, that if the creamer pitcher was roughly full, from tea and the correct amount of milk, it was about the color of my mother’s coffee, a light brown. It’s funny, the personal repertoire of reference we build in our heads, the measurements and comparisons. But I know the splash without that reference, now.
This one needs no stirring—the pouring of liquid into liquid does most of the work.
One more time, I pour the contents of the creamer pitcher into the big teapot.
And The Rest Of The Tea…
Straight from the kettle, I pour the rest of the tea into the big teapot, and seal the lid.
It’s done.
Service Slave Secrets 