🌷 Dreams in the Lilac Gardens...

III. My Lovely Garden

After countless days and weeks of hard work growing up his little garden, Thelymitra was left with a beautiful array of blossoming flowers. The colorful patches covered the whole ground with their vibrant petals, giving Thely a sense of pride and adoration for what they accomplished with his very own hands! At first, he spent most of his time lying around in the meadow, napping there and having flowerful dreams too! But then, the very first petal on his flowers began to wilt, flittering down to the ground, and soon enough he began to think what a shame it was! Soon all of his hard work would be gone when the flowers naturally moved through their life cycle. There must be another way to keep them forever!!

So, Thelymitra read a book. Several, in fact, on what can be done with flowers! He learned about bouquets, pigments, composting, and decorative wreaths. But one thing stood out to him the most; drying and using the petals for tea! During his own creation, a small dab of tea had been used to wet the dough and seal the filling. He could still remember the delicious smell of freshly brewed tea, and decided then and there he'd use his flowers for the same task!

Of course, this was much easier said than done, and Thelymitra hadn't yet realized just what kinds of flowers could be used in tea and which tasted just horrible. But it was all a fun experiment for him. He took his time collecting petals just before they were to fall naturally and drying them out on a cookie rack, or others he tied up into bundles and hung to dry. By the time he was done he'd had hundreds of petals of all sorts of flowers! He carefully stored each kind in big glass jars and laid them out on shelves. Then, came the time to brew his first cup.

For this, he referenced another book; this one about tea blends and which were most delicious and what effects certain flowers could have! To think there were tea blends meant to energize you, and others meant to help you fall asleep. It felt like magic! Combining the flowers he had that matched the book, as well as experimenting with some combinations of his own, Thely added these tea blends as well to his botanist's journal, marking down just what flowers gave off what kinds of flavors. Before he knew it, he'd ended up brewing dozens of cups and thought how it was far too much for one bao to drink. The answer was far too easy...

What better way to clear out all his tea blend surplus than a tea party among the garden flowers?