What The Dickens

A Dickens Who Came Before Dickens

Some teas' names seem less like a title conceived after the recipe is complete, and more like the reaction of the person taking the first sip. WHAT THE DICKENS is exactly such a tea; this unusual blend of black pepper, bay leaf, sage, gentian, wormwood, star anise, nutmeg, rosemary, juniper seed, and dried orange makes it clear from the moment you approach the cup that you are not dealing with a familiar herbal tea. The aroma unfolds a world that oscillates between a forest, a spice cabinet, and an old pharmacy; after the first sip, the bitterness slowly settles, and one inevitably asks the same question:

"What's inside this?"

English has a slightly more historical, slightly more theatrical expression for this astonishment: "What the dickens? " While today we might respond with "What the hell?", "What the heck?", or "What the hell is this?", depending on the tone, this phrase, although seemingly related to Charles Dickens at first glance, has a history more than two centuries older than the author. Here, "dickens " is an old euphemism for "devil"; in other words, a more polite way of expressing the same astonishment and anger without directly mentioning the devil's name. Considering English's success in covering up profanities with little lace covers rather than abandoning them altogether, "what the dickens?" could be considered the shoe-wiping relative of today's "what the hell?" .

One of the most famous early uses of the expression in written language appears in William Shakespeare's comedy , The Merry Wives of Windsor . Mistress Page, trying to remember Sir John Falstaff's name, says, "I cannot tell what the dickens his name is," roughly meaning, "Whatever the hell his name was..." We don't know if Shakespeare actually invented the phrase; he most likely brought to the stage an expression already circulating in colloquial speech. But the fact that he was one of the people who recorded it in a way that would endure for centuries is enough to ensure the idiom is still associated with the Shakespearean world today.

Moreover, the fact that the forgotten name belongs to Falstaff is the comical part of the coincidence. Falstaff is a large, boisterous, boastful knight, excessively fond of drink, and always trying to turn every situation to his advantage. Thinking of the devil while trying to remember the name of such a man isn't entirely unreasonable. This little scene is quite close to the spirit of WHAT THE DICKENS; because our tea also doesn't easily reveal itself at first glance, it makes you read the ingredients list again to understand what it is, and makes you wonder what all these herbs are doing in the same cup.

The recipe's starting point takes us to another world, close to Shakespeare's time, to the brewing stills of the 17th century. In those years, beer and ale were not merely drinks consumed for pleasure, but an important part of daily life; their production required considerable effort, from preparing the malt and heating the water to monitoring fermentation and storing the barrels. After all this effort, if a barrel became flat, too sour, or developed undesirable flavors, discarding it immediately was the last resort. The remaining beverage could be re-boiled with various herbs, roots, barks, and spices, and attempts could be made to transform it into a drinkable beverage by adding strong aromas and a different character.

This process was less about creating beer from scratch in the modern sense, and more about giving an existing barrel a second life. Newly added bitterness altered the direction of the flawed taste, resinous herbs built another layer on top of heavy aromas, and spices, even if they didn't restore the drink to its former state, transformed it into something more interesting. This approach is perfectly understandable when we consider that in early modern cuisine, the line between "improvement" and "skillfully transforming a flaw into something else" wasn't always clear-cut. WHAT THE DICKENS is a contemporary, non-alcoholic echo of this historical idea: there's no longer beer, malt, or yeast; what remains is the dark and strange memory of botanicals that could change the fate of a once-weary barrel.

The backbone of the recipe is formed by gentian and wormwood. Both are extremely serious about bitterness, but they don't say the same thing. Gentian brings a deeper, more rooted, and longer-lasting bitterness, changing the whole aspect of the cup, while wormwood leaves a drier, greener, and more aromatic trail. When used together, they announce from the first sip that the tea will not be a sweet or easily enjoyed evening brew; the bitterness doesn't stand on the sidelines as a detail, but becomes the foundation upon which the recipe is built.

But simply adding bitterness to a drink isn't enough to make it interesting; it needs a world of aromas to surround the bitterness, adding depth and nuance. Bay leaf, sage, rosemary, and juniper seeds take on this role. Bay leaf, with its slowly unfolding woody and balsamic scent, evokes old kitchens, while sage, with its drier, stronger, and slightly camphor-like character, brings the recipe closer to the herbal cupboards of the past. Rosemary and juniper, on the other hand, carry two distinct tones of resin: rosemary is warmer, greener, and sunnier; juniper is cooler, piney, and forest-like. When placed side-by-side, it's easy to imagine an old brewing kettle surrounded by weeds in the cup.

Black pepper, star anise, nutmeg, and orange peel provide movement within this dark herbal body. Black pepper creates a dry, woody sharpness on the tongue, while nutmeg adds a warmer, darker, and resinous layer of spice. The sweet, licorice-like scent of star anise plays a subtle sensory game with the bitterness of gentian and wormwood, rather than masking it; the nose expects something sweet, while the palate receives a completely different response. The orange peel, meanwhile, brings light into these shadowy aromas, highlighting the citrusy aspects of juniper and black pepper, lifting the scent of anise, and creating a narrow path for you to navigate through the bitterness.

Thus, the recipe works on three levels: Gentian and wormwood establish the long and consistent bitterness; bay leaf, sage, rosemary, and juniper create the wild, green, and resinous body; and black pepper, nutmeg, star anise, and orange surround this body with warmth, sharpness, and unexpected aromas. The ingredients, rather than being counted individually, together evoke the feeling of an old herbal beer, a non-alcoholic bitter, or a historical elixir whose purpose has been lost. The very reluctance of WHAT THE DICKENS to fit into a definitive category is, in fact, a significant part of its appeal.

It is no coincidence that the figure greeting us on the label is Puck. In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, is the messenger and reliable troublemaker of Oberon, the King of the Fairies. He is not a demon who wanders around to do evil; however, he certainly has little respect for human order, plans, and their tendency to take themselves too seriously. He confuses relationships in the forest by putting love potions in the wrong person's eyes, transforms the head of the craftsman Bottom into a donkey's head, and watches the resulting chaos with great pleasure, as if he were not responsible for the consequences.

The Puck we used on the label is taken from an oil painting by the Swiss-born English painter Henry Fuseli, dating from approximately 1810–1820 and now in the Folger Shakespeare Library collection. Fuseli had a particular interest in Shakespeare's dark side, filled with ghosts, witches, fairies, and supernatural beings; he interpreted the classic scenes with a gothic unease rather than fairytale elegance. His Puck is no cute fairy from a children's book. The figure gliding through the darkness has a smile that cannot be considered innocent; he may be preparing a joke, or he may have already played it and foreseen the consequences. We don't know which it is, but it's clear he's not as worried about the ensuing chaos as we are.

In this respect, Puck is perfectly connected to both the name of the tea and the character of the recipe. Why has a man's head turned into a donkey's? Why have the wrong people fallen in love? What exactly happened in the woods that night? At the end of all these questions, one of the most appropriate responses would be "what the dickens?" , and the answer would most likely lead to Puck. It's also perfectly natural for the same figure to feel at home looking at this recipe filled with wormwood, juniper, sage, bay leaf, star-shaped anise, and nutmeg. These are like ingredients one could grind in a mortar to alter people's perceptions on a summer night; if Puck saw the recipe, he probably wouldn't be surprised, he'd only slightly adjust the measurements. Therefore, it might be wise not to leave him alone in the kitchen.

A similar chaos unfolds in the cup, but a carefully orchestrated chaos. At first, juniper, rosemary, sage, anise, and orange are more easily discernible; with a sip, bay leaf and spices open up, then the initially distant bitterness of gentian and wormwood grows and takes center stage. The tea doesn't soften all its flavors to make itself instantly appealing; instead, it surprises first, then makes you search for its ingredients with the second sip. After a few sips, you begin to formulate your own definition of whether it's an herbal tea, a non-alcoholic bitter, the ghost of an old beer recipe, or a potion Puck prepared in the woods and forgot to write instructions on.

WHAT THE DICKENS therefore doesn't pretend to be for everyone. If you're looking for a sweet, smooth, and easily recognizable cup, you may have opened the wrong jar; but if you enjoy bitter tastes, old recipes, herbal drinks, quirky historical details, and not being too definitive about what a drink should be, you're in the right place. If the aroma of bay leaf, wormwood, juniper, anise, and orange that rises when you open the lid makes you raise a slight eyebrow, prompts you to reread the ingredients list, and brings a single question to mind even before the cup is brewed, then the name of the tea has already done its job.

The Puck on the label continues to watch you with that ominous smile on his face; he seems to know what you're about to drink, but has no intention of revealing it. We can say with certainty that there is no devil in the ingredients. It's a little harder to give the same assurance about Puck.