Jasmine Bloom

So a friend has stopped by which has obviously slowed my tea drinking. Hopefully Roswell Strange is not using this oppurtunity to catch up!

Luckily this friend knows my love of tea and she actually asked if we could have some. Of course I jumped on the chance. She asked for a floral tea and I determined this to be the perfect oppurtunity to use of the last jasmine bloom that MissB sent me. It was a win-win because she got her floral tea and of course enjoyed the bloom and I did not have to drink a whole pot of this tea on my own.

It is tasty enough. Buttery with a hint of floral but not something I want a whole pot of. So we have been talking over a pot of tea and it is lovely. Also we shared a laugh over this pretty hilarious video:
http://www.sadanduseless.com/2013/05/drunk-wife/

Thanks MissB!

This was very nice! I can no longer recall if I received this is in my box of teas from LiberTeas or if a friend game it to me for my birthday, but the beau and I finally did this up today. Unfortunately, our electric kettle which heats the water to your desired temp chose to die today, so we had to wing it in terms of temp. The bloom opened really beautifully, I had a grand time trying to photograph it through the teapot. The tea itself is really unassuming, lovely flavour with no bitterness at all. I found it really refreshing hot and also after it had cooled off a bit. We intend to do another steep of it later on – blooming teas really have a lot to offer!

This wasn’t the most attractive bloom I’ve ever seen (there were 2 or 3 smallish white flowers – I presume jasmine flowers?), but all blooming teas are a treat to behold, and I am very impressed with the way the flavour held up (as I find that can be a bit of a disappointment on occasion). Loved it!

I’m a fan of blooming teas. Loose leaf tea isn’t too popular in Texas, so when I’m steeping it in public (as I tend to do because I live on a college campus), people are attracted to the visual aspect of it. The bloom wasn’t as attractive as I expected, but it was still pretty.

The smell is great. I’m a fan of floral flavors, so I really love the taste of this tea. It’s weird to describe, but it tastes exactly as the flower smells. So, basically, it tastes lovely.

This opens beautifully and the flavor is very nice. It has a mellow jasmine taste – not bitter or too sweet. The green tea is smooth and slightly vegetative. A very nice cup!

I think Adagio sent me one of these for free at some point, because I don’t remember buying it. Anyway, it’s very pretty of course and brews into a reasonable if mild jasmine green tea.

I feel no need to buy more of these, but there was nothing wrong with it either.

Looking for a blooming tea for my weekly ritual of a blooming tea on Sundays, I found this tea at a supermarket, and decided to try it. Not bad for a blooming tea found at a supermarket, nice to view and meditate on while sipping soothing tea on a Sunday… brews a small 4 cup tea pot just fine, haven’t made it for one cup.

I’m not sure if it’s because this was my first blooming tea or if it’s really that good but this one has always been my favorite. It’s smooth and slightly sweet. The flavors work well together. The tea isn’t too much for the jasmine and the jasmine isn’t too much for the tea. I can usually get several mugs or a couple of decent sized pots (steeping more-or-less grandpa style) from one ball. The few I have are really old, from when they were sold in the cardboard box instead of the newer tins, but they still taste fine. Being individually wrapped seems to have kept them fresh. I tried emailing Adagio a while back to ask if these are still individually wrapped in the new tin packaging but they gave me kind of a non-answer that didn’t actually say. I’d like to buy some more but the quantity would depend on the packaging. It’s not an everyday tea for me and I feel like individually wrapped would stay tasty longer than loose in a tin.

I made the tea in my Grosche Merlin glass pot (aka “Conehead”) this time and was reminded why I don’t use it often. Mine is the version of it with the long skinny infuser (didn’t use it with the blooming tea) and the lid that still fits the pot with the infuser removed…apparently there was a version with a smaller lid that fell into the pot if you tried to use it without the infuser. My lid might not fall in but it’s so tall, awkward and wobbly that holding it while you pour is an absolute must and it gets annoying after the first couple pours. The size of the pot works pretty well with the tea, though. I kept topping off the pot with hot water whenever it got down to somewhere between 2/3 and 1/2 full and the tea kept going until three adults had drunk their fill. These Adagio blooming teas have never failed to bloom for me and my guest (who had never heard of blooming teas) was stunned when it started opening up. She had to take pictures of it and send them to her husband. I love it when one of my tea party “victims” gets excited by my weird teas and treats (I also fed her pastries filled with my homemade cardamom-vanilla rhubarb butter).

Each individual cluster is so well packaged that one can throw an envelope into one’s bag and carry magic around with them everywhere, just in case they want to delight an audience with good, fragrant tea and a really beautiful bloom.

The green tea itself can be overpowered by the jasmine in the first steep, but it’s hard to mind. Later there’s a good, crisp vegetable flavor with just a bit of bitterness that I really do enjoy.

This is not an everyday tea, but it does provide a way to make any day a special one.

Unfortunately, this note will be more on the aesthetics then the actual taste. I made this at my parents house, forgetting that their water always taste rather odd. Even though it was filtered, it still had this funky salty taste. I would like to try it again sometime to get an idea of the flavor. It was definitely fun to watch, though it unfurled rather slowly. The leaves didn’t break up, as some people seemed to be having trouble with. It had a wonderful smell, not too strong and perfumey.

I had 3 cups! Good Green Tea. Simply Put.