Anya looked at the plant. And had no idea what it was. It did look to be spiny though. So. With a raised hand, she decided to take a guess.

"Some type of Thistle?" she suggested.

Mo was relatively familiar with plants, but he could stare at those simple leaves all day and have no idea what they were. It was easier when the plants were distinctive looking, and had flowers or seedpods or something else to catch his attention. But just... leaves. Nothing.

"It looks mundane to me, Professor... like non-magical. Maybe an herb with properties that can be used by Muggles and wizarding kind alike."

Annabeth looked around. She had no idea about the plant. She looked at it for some minutes and thought she had already seen this shade of green... It reminded her the floo powder. She ventured a guess, raising her hand.
"Professor, could it be the plant from which the floo powder is extracted?"

Minerva listened as the rest of the class said their answers. Honest to goodness how did she not remember some of these. Her brain really needed to start working now that she didn't have Ethan as her crutch to lean on in here. Putting these to memory the best she could Min really tried to focus better on what was going on.

When she asked about the plant Minerva was afraid to even look. Don't have vine, don't have vine, don't be a flesh eater, don't be a flesh eater. She looked just enough to notice it didn't seem like a flesh eater and she put her hand up, "Professor it seems to be an herb of some kind. Possibly used for cooking." They had done herbs a few terms ago and she felt like she recognized it, but wasn't completely sure of the name.

Oh how she loved guessing games!

Though... educated guessing games were the best. None of this stab-in0the-dark business.

Seren nodded at some of the responses, "Yes, it can be used for cooking," she replied to Aditya and Minerva. She ignored Alexa's plain comment, how could something so beautiful and versatile be plain? It was downright nonsensical. "Not camelia, not hellebore," she added, giving Hannah and Ella encouraging looks. "Oh no, it certainly won't eat you, you can eat it though," she assured Tora.

"It is leafy," she agreed with Sophie, "and you're on the right track Marcus," she added exchanging a look with the Ravenclaw captain. "However that doesn't tell us much as to what it is."

"Nope, not thistle, nor poison ivy," Seren added, pausing to stroke the plants glossy leaves again. She supposed it did look different in its original form, students wouldn't have spent a great deal of time tending to the plants, but rather consuming their products. "Not floo, no," and "well yes, it is healthy, but that doesn't tell me what it is." At least Asher got the basics, right? It was healthy.

Giving the students the opportunity to guess again, Seren waited. And huzzah! She nodded, grinning enthusiastically. "Yes, tea!" she confirmed with glances to Sarah, Adrienne and Toby.

"Tea is one of the most versatile herbs in both the muggle and magical world... can anybody thing of the different ways in which we might use tea?"

OOC: Lesson will continue in approx 12 hours. Remember to post only ONE answer/idea.

Oh! He had been close! But it could also be used for cooking as the Professor said. So...yep.

Tea! Who didn't love tea? Adi certainly did. With loooooots of sugar. Or honey. So, one could use tea for...cleaning mirrors. Hadn't his mom done that before? Adi couldn't remember if it was tea she had been using. He raised his hand anyway. "Um, Professor, Can it be used to clean mirrors?'' Cleaning mirrors with tea sounded a lot odd.

TEA?!

So how in the name of Merlin was Sophie supposed to have known that? She'd seen tea plenty of times before, but never once had she seen it in its green, leafy form. Nevermind that, though. Now the professor wanted to know some of the different ways tea could be used. Well, for one, it could be used to confuse students in Herbology class...

But as an even better answer... "We can use the leaves of a tea plant in Divination to help see the future," she said, raising her hand. That was another subject she was dreading, but she'd deal with that later.

Different ways to use tea, Cutty knew straight away one alternative use for tea his grandmother had always emphasized was her preferred method. His hand went up and he offered this, "Professor Bentley, my aunt says that one of the most resourceful ways to use tea is to douse down the remains of the cooking sherry. So that the family won't know your secret recipe." Tea had a strong flavour and the boy imagined there were a number of things it could mask the taste of.

Adrienne straightfaced in the direction of the professor. They were in Herbology, in the carnivorous greenhouse, and they were learning about a harmless muggle plant that she'd watered a few times back in Grade four? Wow. That was vaguely disappointing, especially considering the excitement that had taken place last time she and Tora were in this particular greenhouse.

"For Divination?" Perhaps the second most boring possible answer, yes, with the first being drinking, but Adrienne wasn't in the mood to put brainpower into what was clearly going to be a boring, boring class.

Would you look at that, it really WAS tea, which meant a certain Lotus Wisteria needed to make an appearance. This would be a good class for her, she'd have enjoyed it more. Personally, Lex was still waiting for the class where they would pick their own chocolate. Give her that and she would be sold on this subject for the rest of her life. And no we don't mean that cocoa plant stuff. It was NOT chocolate no matter what others said.

"You can use it to broach a sensitive subject with someone." Lex offered after raising her hand. "If you've got bad news, like you smashed someone's vase, lost their money, broke their window trying to break in, just sit them down over some tea, you'll be amazed at where the conversation goes from there."

Lex added a solemn nod to her statement. Tea had its uses, she wouldn't deny that. Like the time her father sent her to her neighbour's to apologize. They sat down to some tea, Lex might have spouted a white lie here and there but it WORKED and that was the important thing.

Tea had a super power or something.

Ah yes! Awesome!

Tobias grinned at getting it right. Succeeding really was the best way to spur him on in something. He wrote down what Professor Bentley was telling them as quickly as he could, but still trying to stay neat, before he set down his quill and raised his hand again.

"It's used to help turn sad times into happy times," he said seriously, lowering his hand and nodding his head as he spoke. "If something bad happens, someone always offers to make the tea, even if it's something that's way more serious than tea. And it doesn't fix the situation, but people keep making tea during bad times, so it must be doing SOMEthing good in times like that, right?"

He supposed that came under the heading 'herbal remedy' or something, but it was too late now and Toby was perfectly happy with his answer.

So it was tea.. there was so much Sarah can say about that, she raised her hand "I drink chamomile tea before gong to bed, it makes me sleepy and relaxed, some teas contain caffeine, so be careful"

Tea could be used to find your inner zen. Ascanius knew that from personal experience. He liked tea and being zen. Inner peace was enlightening. And he was Spiderman sometimes when he found inner peace. S'like the most enlightening thing ever, yeah?

Anyway, he knew he would sound completely bonkers if he answered that way, so he settled for, "Tea can help a sore throat." From screaming or singing or both. Sometimes they were the same thing, yeah?

Rock 'n Roll.

Now, the first two questions were good, but they were pretty much geared towards first-years, and so when Schuyler's classmates answered the questions with such excellent responses, the Gryffindor had nothing to add. As for which plant that was..... Her eyes examined it from afar yet again. Yeah, Schuyler had no idea. She was very knowledgeable about which flowers were which, but plants.... many plants sort of ran together in terms of looks. She still liked plants, though. Let that be noted.

Aah, okay. Uses of tea. "Tea is nice when you're sick. Soothes a sore throat and warms your stomach." Some teas better than others. She rolled her quill between he fingers and listened to the variety of other responses.

Tea. Yes. Tea was delicious. Adelaide loved drinking it all the time. Probably came from her family. Anyways...good uses for tea. She thought through things as she finished scribbling down the rest of her notes.

She raised her hand. "My mother uses it to clean all over the house. It actually works quite well and smells good too." And that was one of the reasons there was always a lot of tea in her home.

So they were working with tea, well she could think of far worse plants to work with than tea so Minerva was fine with tea. Even though she did catch the eating comment. Merlin everyone was obsessed with the dangerous plants it seemed, even though she couldn't figure out why. Who really would want to be anywhere near flesh eaters. Oh wait.. never mind she knew of two on the top of her head. One was standing right in front of her the other was at Uni probably standing in front of one right now. *wibbles at the thought* No.. no tea.. think about tea.

Putting up her hand Minerva tried to think of ways it was used, "Well the most common way I know is to drink. It is highly useful for stomach aches, trouble sleeping, putting peppermint with it is a natural way to relax the muscles." That was some of the uses she knew at least.

That...was tea? He stared at it some more, only to decide that it looked decidedly boring in that form. It begged the question: why did someone in the past think, 'oh yes, I bet this will taste nice if I dry it, and boil it back up again!'?

Evolution fascinated him.

Also, Lex got an intrigued look at her answer. He could almost see a double meaning there. Almost.

As for his answer, well, he was going a bit more out of the box. "You can use it to stain parchment and make it look really old," he said, raising his hand. "Even better if you singe the edges too." Like, to make effective looking pirate treasure maps. Mhmm.

Not hazarding a guess as to what the plant was, but Alice could think if a couple ways one could use it. "Didn't people bathe in it? In the olden days?" Yes? No? Maybe?

Not now, clearly.

She twirled her quill and watched the professor with serious eyes.

She got an encouraging look! So she was on the right track. So it was tea, she was pretty dang close. Hannah was just happy to be on the same page as everybody else. Identifying plants was not something she was strong at.

The sixth year actually knew several things that they could use tea for and so far nobody had said what she was thinking. Was this her lucky day or what? She raised her hand. "Professor you can use tea to slow down bleeding." Maybe she should elaborate? "I saw somebody bite down on a tea bag to slow a bleeding gum and it actually worked." It was actually pretty cool.

"Oh, so it was not floo," Annabeth thought, a bit disappointed, she was eager to know the plant from which the floo powder was extracted... Well, back to the classroom.

Tea... She rolled her eyes. She loved tea, but it would be nice if it was something else. She began counting on her finger "We could use tea for healing; putting babies to sleep; both to calm down and to excite - depending on the tea; to make predictions; to clean house; to scent the rooms or bed linens; to take bath; to make spiritual cleansing; to quench the thirst; to poison..." Hm... Poison! It was very interesting. The girl raised her hand and said:

"Professor, the ways in which we might use tea are beyond number and I shall mention only two of them. We can use tea to make spiritual cleansing and to poison."

Yeah, Kat didn't know what the heck the plant was. But sure, it was tea leaves. She definitely knew what tea was, but she couldn't tell what its leaves looked like... much more the appearance of the plant itself. It was good to know that information, though. Maybe. Would it come out in their NEWTs? Hopefully her textbook had photos of the plant because that would be cool and much more informative.

Uses of tea. Kat only knew two uses, drinking and Divination purposes, but after scanning a few pages from her Herbology textbook she found out even more. So she raised her hand up. "Apparently, it has nutrients which can... you know, help in plant growth, Professor?" The textbook didn't lie, but she wanted to make sure that it actually was accurate. Sometimes she didn't trust books unless it was proven. That didn't mean she trusted all of her Professors because she totally didn't trust a certain bearded Arithmancy bloke.

Well, if she was the one to eat it Tora guessed it would be ok... But what was tea used for? The most obvious was for drinking and for divination, but one could also use to for so many more things. "You could use tea, or well, the act of drinking tea, to set the mood in a room. You could make it friendly or really really not friendly at all. For example, I think it was in China a tea ceremony could be done well and show respect or it could insult someone. So it could be used for social purposes.. right?" she asked hopefully, spinning out her idea as she thought of it.

Tea...riiiiiight.

Forrest looked around. He'd kept silent throughout the guessing game, but now it was list-the-properties time, so he raised his hand.

"We drink it to feel warmer." Warm beverages did that. Perfect for a winter day.

Whether the girl was seriously listing answers, or whether she was thinking out loud... it wasn't appreciated.

"Yes, valid points... but please refrain from hogging the limelight from your peers... minus two points for going over the top. Exercise some control."

And actually...
"Tea, is not a poison, but may be used as a masking agent or as a tool for its administration... select your words carefully."



Despite Annabeth's excessive contribution to class discussion, the other students were not short of ideas. It was a relief. Though some answers were more popular than others.

Ascanius, Schuyler and Minerva started expressed sound points, "absolutely, often used for their healing and soothing properties for various ailments, not just a sore throat or upset stomach," she elaborated, nodding. And on the same wave length with the healing thing, Hannah built on the idea. "Indeed, though that often only works for the gums, you'll be hard pressed to stem blood flow from a sliced finger with a teabag." Don't try that at home kids... bad idea.

"Divination is a branch of magic that uses tea, yes... and of course potion making often involves the herb or variations of the genus," she acknowledged Sophie and Adrienne with a nod and indicative hand gesture.
"Good, Sarah... often used to help induce sleep or rest." What with tea being renown for its ability to soothe and calm.

Then of course there were some lesser straight-forward answers, it just wasn't usual practice anymore, so it was nice to hear so many were familiar with it. "Very good Aditya and Adelaide... tea is an excellent and safe method of cleaning, should you need to do it manually." Which was time consuming, who had time for that?

Seren gazed at Cutty, her expression etched with confusion... er... something about cooking, but what? "..... mmhhhmmm." Sure. Why not. Wait, no.. "I'm not quite sure what you mean, but ... yes... it can be used in cooking." Yep.. and moving on now.

Benjamin's response also came to her as a surprise. To stain parchment to look older?.... "Sure... "
Could they have some normal answers again please?

Of course, normal didn't happen at Hogwarts very often, so what Alice said next made her pause. The girl wasn't wrong by any stretch of the imagination, though it was still strange. "Yes, they did... and some still do no doubt. More often then not people wash their hair in it to give it a healthy glow." And you know, dark tea would stain the hair darker temporarily whereas your lighter variations such as chamomile added a light sheen.

Alexa, Toby, Tora and Forrest were all more or less headed in the same direction with their argument. "Absolutely. The primary use of tea is for social purposes... soothing, comforting or consoling friends, inviting strangers... simply offering warmth or happiness," she nodded in agreement. And then there was Katrina...

"Yes!" Seren exclaimed, again they were starting to lean away from the obvious and touch on bigger ideas. "Tea can be used in fertilisers or compost or even as an alternative to water," she agreed, smiling brightly... so many fond memories. "For example, toothing flesh eaters may benefit from tea because it may soothe and placate them, much like how the teas properties sooth us."

Over all... they pretty much touched on everything, ish.
"Essentially, we need to recognise that tea, as with many other herbs, has multiple uses within our society. We can use it to clean, to heal... whether we're harnessing it's properties directly or using it in a potion, to obtain nutrients from it... this applies to all living things - humans, plants and creatures alike, divination, potions - as mentioned, and of course... most commonly, through social practices." Were they taking notes? They ought to be taking notes. On all of this, yep.

"Now... when we think of drinking tea, we often use other herbs in addition to the humble tea leaf... so just quickly, I'd like everyone to name an additional herb that may be used in or as tea and if possible provide an explanation of its properties."

OOC: The lesson will continue in approx 16 hours. Remember to post only ONE herb/property. Thanks!

OOC: Wikipedia says it's 'Tilia', but I suppose the common name is 'lime'.

Forrest thought about a herb, and the first thing that came to his mind was 'lemon'. Was it a herb? Probably not... he sighed. He was thinking about all kinds of tea when he remembered his favourite: lime!

"Lime is a type of tea too," he said with his hand in the hair. "It's used to treat stomach ache and flu, I think?" His mother was big on these, so he knew a few too.