Friday Knows Tea

     One interesting component of Lexical-Gustatory Synesthesia is the difference between word flavors and feeling flavors. What I mean by this is that the word "happy" tastes one way, but the feeling of being happy tastes entirely different. When I read the word "happy," my tongue is coated with sweet orange oil and the sensation of catching a snowflake on the tip of the tongue. Pops of effervescent coriander make themselves known here and there like very quiet pop rocks. The feeling of happy, however, is the smell of lilac in the back of the throat and a warm wet cloud pressed against the hard and soft palates. It's a bit earthy-fatty on the sides of the tongue, like a very rich cacao nib.     I commonly experience both the feeling and the word flavors simultaneously as a double exposure (like trick photography, but in my brain-mouth), as emotions are at least a little replicated when they are being discussed or described. Humans are super into empathy ...

  Before we get into this dreamy perky explosion of teen magical girl flavor, a word about synesTEAsia:      Synesthesia is a neurological cross-wiring of the senses that leads the individual to experience sound as color, numbers as personalities, words as flavors and so on. There are a lot of different forms of synesthesia, and it is not uncommon for synesthetes to experience multiple forms to varying degrees. Polysynesthetes such as myself make up 2-3% of the world's population.      My dominant form is called Lexical-Gustatory Synesthesia (I literally taste words) and is the root of my blending work. While being a tea blender certainly requires skill and knowledge of ingredients, flavor and texture profiles and palate matching, it doesn't hurt to have an intimate relationship with flavors and the stories they evoke. I imagine a word, an idea, a lyric, a feeling or a memory, then pick apart what I taste in my brain-mouth using my decades of experie...

For those new to our blends, welcome! Our themed teas are mostly developed from CEO Friday Elliott's neurological superpower, lexical-gustatory synesthesia . These BTB ( behind the blend ) posts serve as a dissection of Friday's process and experience.  Today, however, we are examining one of our blends NOT developed by Friday. This tea was created by our shop teen, Teacup, also a polysynesthete. We interviewed Teacup about the inspiration behind The Modern Pro-TEA-theus. Portrait of a Young Blender Friday: Teacup, hello! Teacup: Helloooo Friday: Can you tell us why you chose Frankenstein as subject material? Teacup: We were working on the Horror Collection, and so I felt like having a good Frankenstein tea would be really really beneficial to the collection, especially because it's like a "classic horror monster," and I thought it would be fun to do that. Also I had several ideas for it. Friday: Tell me about the tea! Teacup: The tea is a fu...

For those new to our blends, welcome! Our themed teas are mostly developed from CEO Friday Elliott's neurological superpower, lexical-gustatory synesthesia . These BTB ( behind the blend ) posts serve as a dissection of Friday's process and experience. Caffeine jolt with a leather body and smoke underbelly You know that energy dip that hits about 70% through a writing session? The total drop in motivation and the brain fog that accompanies it? This tea is designed to taste like the opposite of that. Sometimes we all need a little bolstering, and sometimes we need a lot of bolstering. That bolstering kick in the butt tastes like no-nonsense peaty earthiness and bitey smoke with a honeyed zip of go-get-em smile. These qualities manifest in today's featured tea, Writer's Fuel ! I started with a base of Rwandan black tea , a smooth and sweetly malty-floral black tea from Africa (made with cultivars brought from Taiwan, hence the floral notes). It's full-bodied...

The Excelsior My parents met in their high school Star Trek club, and so naturally baby's first fandom was the one to which I literally owe my existence. I've lost count of the number of conventions I attended growing up. The Klingons I've met surely number in the hundreds at this point. This may not have made me the coolest kid growing up, but I can honestly boast the ability to paint my body head-to-toe green with no streaking in fifteen minutes flat (while the only tool in my cosplay skill set, I do love to brag about it). When I was nineteen years old, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting lifelong heroes George Takei and Nichelle Nichols at the Star Trek 40th anniversary gala atop Seattle's Space Needle. They were both so warm and affable and allowed me to hug them (after of course being reassured my green body paint was sealed and wouldn't stain their clothing). I was enchanted, and still smile every time one or the other crosses my Twitter timeline. ...

Fall is here and we are ready ready READY for autumnal flavors. I'm personally using the season as an excuse to highlight one of my favorite fandom teas, inspired by an ill-tempered and irascible young girl from Omaha, Nebraska. September is the protagonist of Catherynne M. Valente's lush and heartbreaking Fairyland series. When the series begins (the first book is titled The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland on a Ship of Her Own Making), September is a discontented girl of twelve who is bored to tears by her life of rural chores and a school life where her imagination is underappreciated. She is swept away by the Green Wind to Fairyland, where she meets magical creatures and stumbles upon a series of quests. We see September boldly dive into danger in pursuit of friendship and adventure time and time again, feeling everything more keenly as the book goes on and she grows her small child's heart to match her rapidly maturing life experience. September's Blend ...

Today's episode of Behind the Blend features my personal favorite of our RPG character class collection: Ranger's Blend! The inspiration for each character class blend is an archetype, rather than any specific character. Rangers are sly, observant, and physically dexterous. They have a close relationship with the forest, a kinship with the natural world. Toasty green mélange of foresty delish. Green was an obvious choice for our base, but which green to pick? With so rich and mysterious an archetypal profile, I needed to put together a base that was a blend of bright and dark, toasty and lush. Houjicha (toasted twigs and stems) has the tree bark roasted notes and light body of upper-canopy branches. Dragonwell green serves to bring both sunshine-butter and earthy toastiness to the blend, and Gunpowder green complements the butter with a clean mineral finish. This tea didn't need anything other than tea. The Ranger is pure and complex, simple and layered, myste...

For today's episode of Behind the Blend, I am delighted to highlight our first ever Chari-tea: Rohan's Research Blend! Rohan's Research Blend Rohan is a delightful neighborhood kiddo whose mother approached me to request a custom tea to benefit the medical research organization with which she is involved. The Association for Creatine Deficiencies is "a nonprofit organization dedicated to the three Cerebral Creatine Deficiency Syndromes" (pulled from their website as I couldn't think of a better way to phrase it). Rohan himself has been diagnosed with Cerebral Creatine Deficiency and, along with his mother's personal flavor preferences, served as the inspiration for this blend. For those not totally familiar with my blending method, allow me to sum up: I have a neurological super power called Lexical-Gustatory Synesthesia. This cross-wiring of the senses causes me to literally taste words and abstract concepts like personality, mood, ideas and so...

Today's episode of Behind the Blend may feel a bit out of season, but it's a particularly chill and blustery April morning and I've been thinking a lot about death and seasonal shifts lately. So, for today's foray into synesthetic perception, I would like to introduce you to an old Friday Afternoon fave: Raise the Dead.  Raise the Dead The inspiration: This blend was originally commissioned by our lovely friend Tara ( aka The Geeky Hostess ) to celebrate the release of the movie Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Tara wrote me before the movie launched, asking if I'd like to collaborate on a collection themed around the movie. We had way too much fun with the project! I used my Synesthetic Superpowers to taste up three blends: Darcy's Delight , Mrs. Bennet's Nerve Tonic , and Raise the Dead . Tara paired each tea with her super fun naturally-colored sprinkles (sadly no longer available) and the teas got picked up by Espionage Cosmetics as part of a...

As you probably know, I perceive the world with my taste buds. My dominant form of synesthesia is Lexical-Gustatory. This means I literally taste words, ideas, feelings, personalities, etc. The overwhelming majority of my blends are direct translations to leaf of the flavors my brain-mouth is experiencing. Today, I wanted to share with you the way I experience one particular flavor profile: Love. To be specific, I'm talking totally bonkers, swept-up, overwhelming, skin-tingling passion. The kind of Love you feel when you find yourself clicking over and over and over with someone. The kind of Love that makes all the garbage and difficulty of the dating world worth it. The love you feel for family, close friends and pets is a different (though still yummy) flavor. I'm particularly fixated on this tasty, tingly sensation because I'm right in the middle of it these days. For the last two months, I've been in the midst of a crazy whirlwind romance. It's bee...

I am frequently asked how I get ideas for my blends. Where does my inspiration come from? Which comes first, the blend or its name? I'm proud of how original my blends are, and how different from blends you'll find by any other company. This is largely due to the fact that I have synesthesia (meaning my senses are cross-wired and abstract concepts, personalities, colors, weather, etc. all translate to me as flavor). My dominant forms are referred to as "lexical-gustatory," "auditory-tactile," and "mirror touch." It's fascinating stuff for sure, and has made my life and relationships more complicated. On the flip side, I have discovered a practical use for my brain-strangeness! Like many synesthetes before me (Jimi Hendrix, Tori Amos, Richard Feynman, Vladimir Nabokov, etc.), I've translated my particular brand of strange into a career. Synesthesia salad. credit: jessicahagy.info/ My personal experience with synesthesia leads me...