Iced Esteban

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The Iced Esteban is a non-alcoholic drink endowed with remarkable healing properties, first created around year 2020. It's named after the luminous demigod Esteban, without whom it would be impossible to prepare it.

This beverage is virtually unknown outside of the Ministry of Light -- especially inside the DRICE department -- where it's instead regularly consumed.

In the Spaceport (a structure managed, indeed, by DRICE) there's a great number of aliens and other creatures, which might have organisms incompatible with common medicine, but that is still important to be able to heal when in need; the answer to this necessity was found in the ability of a young Light Knight, Esteban, to kickstart miraculous healings... in those who ingested some of his bodily fluids, like saliva. The idea of taking a stranger's spit wasn't appealing to most though: that's how the Iced Esteban was born! The demigod's saliva got mixed with other ingredients to better its aspect and taste and encourage those who needed it to drink it.

The Iced Esteban is a pink, slightly transparent liquid, on which surface there's an inviting sparkling. His bubbles are called, indeed, "sparkles". It's generally served in cocktail glasses or other clear objects, because his look is considered fairly appetizing.

 

🍹️ Ingredients and preparation

 

✔️  Esteban's saliva

✔️  Green tea

✔️  Stevia

✔️  Lemon juice

✔️  Ice

• Obtain some tea.
There are mainly two ways to accomplish this step, namely A) soak the green tea leaves - or tea bags - in cold water and wait patiently until it reaches the desired color and flavor, or B) heat some water in a saucepan and add the leaves or tea bags when it comes to a boil, leaving to infuse for a maximum of five minutes. Then pour the hot tea into a container with ice cubes. Both methods are fine, the important thing is that the tea remains cool. The substantial difference, which can lead to choosing one method rather than the other, lies in the time taken and the intensity of the flavor: hot infusion takes less time, cold infusion has a more delicate flavor.

• Add stevia and lemone juice to taste, just enough to get the desider taste (see Flavor). 

• Ask Esteban to spit in it, stir quickly and vigorously for a few seconds, making sure the drink obtains its omogenous chewing gum pink color.

• Serve making sure there's still ice and the beverage is still cold.

 

🍹️ Usage ad effects

Influenced as it is by a powerful luminous magic, this drink has extraordinary healing abilities! The EG provides an extra energy boost and restores the body's ideal conditions. 

To heal damage of medium severity the equivalent of a double cocktail glass, ie 200 ml, will be sufficient, but in the presence of more serious damage it will be necessary to increase the dose to obtain the desired effect. 

Considered a real panacea, it's able to cure fractures, injuries, inflammation and burns, hemorrhages, muscle aches, partial mutilations, improve the health and appearance of the skin and, in some cases, even block the onset of cellular anomalies such as tumors or degenerative diseases and balance hormonal abnormalities over time. 

As incredibly versatile as it is, however, even Iced Esteban has its limitations: it cannot heal someone from iron deficiencies, nor from viral diseases or parasitic infestations (since it would, alas, give extra energy to viruses and parasites too), it cannot regrow missing organs or heal those who have already suffered both brain death and cardiac arrest, and cannot act against magical damage (such as curses, diabolical possessions, damage from Piercing Auras or seals of destruction), but can heal damage indirectly caused by magic (for example, flames summoned by a fire witch are often not magical themselves, so the EG may heal burns caused by them). Although it was designed as a drink, EG is also effective for topical use.

 

🍹️ Flavor

 

The flavor of the Iced Esteban is light and summery, pleasantly sweet and slightly pungent.

It has a very light, pleasant effervescence on the tongue similar to that produced by beer foam.  

If smelled by a human, it smells like a common green tea with lemon.

 

🍹️ Facts and trivia

• Sometimes an EG variant with water is prepared for those who prefer not to consume tea. In this case a slight aftertaste, similar to cherry flavor, becomes detectable; it happens that in this variant the lemon juice is replaced with that of tangerine.

• It seems that the surface of the EG easily captures and reflects light. This is also why its sparkling bubbles are called "sparks" or "starlets", as they look like actively luminous dots.

• In the EG, stevia is used as a sweetener instead of sugar because Esteban's saliva encourages the flourishing of various microorganisms, including those involved in alcoholic fermentation. If the sugar, which these enzymes feed on, were used, the alcohol content of the EG would rise in a very short time.

• From March to April 2020, EG production was discontinued because poor Esteban had contracted Covid-19. It goes without saying that they couldn't have him spitting into people's glasses, or he would have infected the whole Ministry.

 

🍹️ See also

• Ministry of Light (English page is still a WIP! Thanks for the patience 🌵💓)