How to make a magical cup of tea – Part One

Opinions vary widely on how to make a really good cup of tea. Some believe you should not add sugar because it destroys the richness of the flavour.

Others, most notably the famous Flemish Tea connoisseur, Osgood Flanderboost, insist that the milk should be warmed to precisely 30 degrees centigrade and the tea leaves stored for nine days in a barrel of salty kippers.

For Madame Wu, however, nothing made a more magical cup of tea than fresh unicorn milk with a smidgeon of grated dragon root sprinkled on top.

You see, Madame Wu was a witch and the tea she made was a very special kind of brew.

But dragon root was not an easy thing to come by; not since the great dragon root scourge of eleventeen hundred and zero which had wiped out entire dragon root plantations.

“I simply must have that root”, she said, dourly, one day, staring into her magic golden teapot, “A cup of magic tea is just not the same without it”.
And, in desperation, she tried calling her main supplier of dragon root, Mr Hong, a specialist in exotic, magical herbs and ingredients on her magic golden telephone and, after arguing for at least a half hour with the magic telephone operator, she was put through to his head offices in Outer Mongolia.

“Ahhh.. Madame Wu”, said Hong, answering the phone and recognizing the voice of one of his oldest and best customers, “What can I do for you. Some mummified mandrake root perhaps or some Yheti’s toe nail clippings?”.

“Another time perhaps”, said the Witch, in no mood for listening to a lot of sales patter, “What I need is Dragon root; a whole bunch of it if you have it”.

The man on the other end of the telephone became despondent, “Ahh. I wish I could accommodate you”, he said, sighing, “But, as you well know, Dragon root has become very rare, what with the great Dragon root scourge, but perhaps I can interest you in some grated vampire teeth; its almost as strong as Dragon root and has that same zingy quality”.

“Humph! Call yourself a specialist supplier of exotic magical herbs and ingredients; you charlatan! I ought to turn you and your whole family into hunch-backed toads”, said Madame Wu grumpily before hanging up the phone.

“There’s nothing else for it”, she thought, “I’ll have to track down some Dragon root the old fashioned way, growing in the wild”.

There was only one problem, though. She would need a little girl, one with a heart of gold; or silver at least.

Snapping her fingers, she summoned her flying broom and, a moment later, it flew in through the kitchen door.

Unlike most brooms however; hers didn’t obey her commands with eagerness and vitality and that’s because she had made the mistake of using the wood of the weeping willow tree to make it and now, instead of being happy to serve her, it was always melancholy and spent most of its time moaning and sobbing.

“Are we going out?”, sighed the broom, its droopy wooden handle gazing at the kitchen floor, “Good. Perhaps a spot of sunshine might help make me feel better. I’ve been feeling a little down about my life lately”.

But Wu had no time for the brooms self-pity, “Can it! Before I snap you up and use you for firewood, you snivelling wretch!”, she said, kicking the broom up its bristled backside with the pointy toe of her witches boot, “We’ve got to find a good little girl and quickly”.

Then, mounting the broom, which winced under the burden of its rather overweight mistress; Madame Wu commanded her kitchen window to open with a flick of her wrinkled wrist which it did
instantly and then broom and rider shot out of the witch’s house as quickly as a pea from a pea shooter, skidding across the air before soaring up into the open skies.