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Did you know that Bird & Blend have a book club? This is a marvellous idea, what was books and teas being such natural bedfellows. Curling up with a good book, a snoozy cat and a mug of something invigorating and warming is one of life’s greatest pleasures.
This month’s Bird & Blend bookish virtual event takes place on Thursday 29th July. So, you can still sign up if you’re quick. Head teamonger Krisi Birdnblend (possibly not her actual surname) will be joined by the authors of this month’s book selections, which for July were ‘Hexed’ by Julia Tuffs and ‘The Throne of Swans’ by Katharine and Elizabeth Corr.
Sadly, if you’re only just signing up now, it’s too late to get the free tea sample that comes with the ticket purchase. This month’s tea choice was Blue Raspberry green tea and some fruity tisane thing which I’ve forgotten. I went for the option that actually had tea in it, obviously.
And because I’m impatient and greedy, I immediately ordered a whole sachet of it from the Bird & Blend website so that I didn’t have to wait until the 29th to try it. I wanted to sip it all the way through reading ‘Hexed‘.
Blue Raspberry tea takes the ‘blue’ part of its name very seriously. It contains blue pea flowers, which as I mentioned in my review of Bird & Blend’s Blueberry and Peach, have the magical ability to turn a tea very, very blue indeed. They are not mucking about with their blueness.
In fact, I ended up closing my eyes while I actually tasted the tea because I didn’t want to get distracted by the crazy visuals. Blue Raspberry is a very nice Chinese Sencha with freeze-dried raspberries and flavourings, giving it a satisfyingly fruity boost.
Oh and it’s blue. Very, very blue.
On the Bird & Blend website, they have a very cool trick where they add lemon juice to blue raspberry tea, which changes the colour of the brew from blue to pink. Obviously I gave this a go and squeezed some lemons into my drink. I was unable to achieve the fancy twotone effects from the video (I guess they’ve had more practice than me) but can definitely confirm that the magical colour change works a treat.
The problem is that it turns the colour from wacky madcap blue to a far less unique cranberry-esque colour. I’m pretty sure that this isn’t how magic is supposed to work – changing the extraordinary into the ordinary. It’s like turning gold into base metal or wine into water.
Talking of magic, I really enjoyed Julia Tuff’s ‘Hexed’. It’s a light hearted and often incredibly funny Young Adult story with a serious point and a strong message at its core.
Jessie Jones is already struggling with adolescent angst, a house move and a particularly obnoxious secondary school with an ingrained culture of sexism and bullying. When she discovers that she also has magic powers and is from a long line of powerful witches, it’s just one more thing that she really doesn’t want to have to deal with right now.
Obviously, as the book progresses, Jess discovers that witchy powers are actually pretty cool. But brilliantly, the main message of ‘Hexed‘ is that young women don’t need to have supernatural powers in order to be powerful.
The book’s strapline, “Don’t get mad, get powers” isn’t just a reference to Jesse’s magical ability. Wrapped up in this laugh-out-loud fun adventure, is a feminist call to action.
I’m really looking forward to sipping my weirdy blue tea and joining the Hexed discussion on Thursday. Maybe I’ll see you there!
Tickets for the Bird & Blend Book Club zoom event are available for sale at Eventbrite.
