Jasmine Pearls

Golden Moon sample No. 21 of 31, chosen at random.

I had a hard day. I just sold my childhood home, which I’d been holding on to since my mom died in the mid-90s, mostly for sentimental reasons. I thought I was ready for this step. Sure beats being a landlord from multiple states away (so my thinking went). Or having it sit empty and having to deal with upkeep from multiple states away (so my thinking went). And it’s in an area that, very fortunately, held its value during the recession and even appreciated some, so no downside there. And the transaction was relatively painless because the lady who was renting it bought it, and so I didn’t have to put it on the market.

But when I had to sit down with the notary and sign the deed, I started to feel really sad. So many memories tied up in that house. We moved into it when I was 5. I’m trying to make myself look at the bright side. At least the buyer wants to live in it and update it, not tear it down and build a McMansion on the little lot. So if I ever find myself in the neighborhood with my kids, I’ll still be able to show them the house mommy grew up in.

But. Stress. And work stress this week too, no time to work out for 2 days. I’m hoping to take a few days off as soon as I get a project done, maybe get a massage. Yeah, that’s what I’ll look forward to, she said.

Anyway, I thought I had a conference call at 7 p.m. tonight but it got postponed, so I actually have a shot of doing a workout. But I really don’t feel like it, so I am hoping a gentle caffeine lift may help motivate me.

I haven’t had jasmine pearls before though I’ve seen pictures of them. The pictures don’t really do them justice. They’re quite charming looking in real life. They look like tiny, variegated aquarium snails. Or miniscule turbans. Or rolled up bits of rattan. They have a strong, sweet, jasmine smell.

The liquor is pale yellow with a hint of green and has a rich jasmine smell. It’s got a lot to it without being artificial or overwhelming. I’d happily wear it as perfume; it smells lovely and fresh. It would make a nice spring/summer eau de toilette.

The taste is very, very sweet and slightly vegetal, with the predominant note, not surprisingly, that of jasmine. The tea has a light body, but I’m not sure I could rightly expect jasmine to be chewy.

By the end of my first steep, the pearls had only partially uncurled. Some of them were starting to look a bit ringletty. The flavor on the second steep, while still light bodied, had more depth. It felt a bit silkier, like it was leaning toward green oolong land. The pearls were pretty much uncurled at this point, except for a few that had a tightly wound bit still at the end of the leaf and looked a little like… sperm! I gave them another run through, believing that there might be more flavor hiding in the curls. There was, though the second steep was tastier. The third was heading toward washed out.

I can’t remember the non-pearl GM jasmine well enough to compare these two. Perhaps it’s my mood and my great need for comfort today, but I have a more positive visceral response to this one than to the other.

Can someone who is more experienced with green teas in general and jasmine green tea in particular educate me on why one would have both jasmine pearls and regular leaf jasmine in one’s cupboard other than for variety in how they look and whatever difference there may be in how any given one tastes vs. another? Is there something else I should be considering? If I had to choose between the two at the moment I’d pick this, but perhaps there’s more to it I should be thinking about?

We are having another dreary, rainy day, so I had to pull out something jasmine from my stash; it has a magical property which puts me in a good mood!

Beautiful rolled leaves striped with jasmine flowers. A real treat to look at.

First infusion: Sweet, light, and delightful! I had it in my mind that I preferred jasmine oolongs, but I see that I once again put myself into an incorrect box! I love this tea!

Second infusion (4 min): Slightly darker in color. A slightly more green taste and slightly less jasmine taste make it a very harmonious, delicious cup. Totally in a better mood!

Third infusion (5 min): This tea has had it – I am sipping slightly jasmine tasting warm water. I will finish it because I’m freezing!!! but if I had more of this tea I would only make two infusions.

To me, the second infusion is the better of the two, but both are very enjoyable.

I would call “TIN!” but I have a tin of A+D Jasmine Green in my stash, plus I really, really want to try Samovar’s Jasmine Pearl Green Tea first. It looks exquisite!

Jasmine tea is my happy tea!!!

ok ive been wanting to try a jasmine tea for a while now and the sample was 0.99$ how could i go wrong? the leaves/balls smell nice they are not strong at all like i had expected them to be and there cute little pebbles :) they looked really cool opening up in the hot water. the smell of the wetl eaves and tea….they remind me of those foam tub toy blocks i had as a child that stick to the wall when their wet. i tasted it unsweetened and it had almost no flavor so i added my normal amount of sugar and well…it tastes like it smells…i dont think i like jasmine tea….i will try others because i dont want to compleatly close that door. the tea itself is yellow which i didnt expect either but it is very pretty.

This is one of those teas that falls into the “eh” category. A take it or leave it kind of tea.

But frankly, right now, I’m pretty happy to be drinking tea. I really haven’t had ANY since January 1st.

I actually have three different kinds of Jasmine Pearls in the house, thanks to takgoti! I figured I’d try the Golden Moon one first, before I try some high-quality takgoti versions.

The look of this tea is gorgeous! Pretty little pearls, a beautiful blue-green with yellow strings interspersed. So soft and silky to the touch. The pearls smell like a juicy, floral jasmine. They’re extremely fragrant. Each pearl has jasmine seeped right into it. I couldn’t wait to see what these leaves would do in the water!

They unfurl beautifully once the hot water touches them. I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t unfurl more than I thought they would. Most of them were still somewhat rolled by the time my timer rang.

So I poured, and the wet leaves smell like a milder version of the dry. And the infusion smelled delicious, with a rich, heady jasmine scent. A sweet green smell underlying it as well. And such a pretty light yellow! Similar more to a white tea than a green, actually.

The light color should have tipped me off to the taste of this tea. Because it’s very light, especially when hot. The jasmine doesn’t really come through until the aftertaste, and the forefront of the flavor is definitely a Chinese green taste: a bit bitter and vegetal, maybe a bit mineral-like.

The problem is just that the tea is just too flavorless and unexciting. It’s not that it’s a bad tea, perse. It’s just I wanted a fuller tea taste, and more body. Not necessarily bold and brisk and strong, like a black. Just more rounded and interesting, especially on the jasmine front.

In short, the tea is weakness. Maybe a good introduction to jasmine, but I don’t see it winning any awards. I’m sure that there are better jasmine pearl teas out there.

Second Steep

So I decided to steep this a second time, at 3:30 minutes, and the same water temperature. The leaves opened up a little bit more, but still didn’t completely unfurl. Odd. The juice was around the same color as the first time, except with a bit more of a honey tone. The tea had a bit of a thicker mouthfeel, and much more sweetness. The sweetness became a bit overbearing after a while, though, with the jasmine only appearing as an aftertaste. After the tea cooled, it seriously began to taste like Juicy Fruit gum. I don’t know why, or how. But it was bizarre. More of like an aftertaste of Juicy Fruit. Like you’ve chewed it for too long and you spit it out, and then your whole mouth feels like it.

Really odd.

In case you have not noticed, most of my recent infusions have been ones I am doing in a travel mug on my ridiculously long drive to work – which means my tea is infusing for way longer than necessary and being drank while the leaves are still submerged in the cup. As one of my first entries (on a Dragonwell – I think Teavana’s) explained, this is how I usually drank green tea, over-infused so as to get every ounce of tea flavor out of a single infusion. Today is no exception.

I really want to finish the Golden Moon sampler. I have but a few samples left – I chose this one because I really needed to relax today and this usually does the trick. The little tiny pearls are perfectly curled and rolled into little balls, none of them are broken or damaged, no torn or flailing leaves, very nice. The aroma off of the un-infused tea is jasmine and green tea, so far so good.

Added the sample pack to my travel mug, filled ¾ with hot water and the rest with cold water (I do this so that the tea is not brewing so hot because it is going to infuse for so long – this is not correct practice, I know this, but I do not want to scorch it up front and have a wasted cup of tea while on the road.) The pearls took about ten minutes to completely unfurl into long green leaves with a light honey colored liquor, the fragrance is strong Jasmine. The flavor initially is green with some Jasmine. After a bit longer on the infusion, the tea shifts in flavor to be less vegetal green and more Jasmine. By the end of the cup, it is mostly Jasmine, no real other flavor playing any role here.

Overall, I like this tea, you cannot have it every day, but that is true of most people and most Jasmine teas. The floral aroma and smell is just too powdery and overwhelming to enjoy every day. When I need to relax and have something special, I could definitely see me reaching for a cup of this, it was very good, but too strong for every day.

This is nice. Very light, bordering a bit on perfume-y but not crossing over and I’m not getting a ton of tea taste from it, but it is still nice. No nasty aftertaste or obnoxiousness, just a soft jasmine. Not too complex, not a big depth of flavor and more jasmine than tea, but sometimes the tea taste in a jasmine can turn me off so this avoids that problem.

Overall, it’s pretty inoffensive. Just a jasmine tea. I know I keep saying it’s nice, but it is. I can’t really go farther than that, though. Nothing bad is going on in it, but there’s nothing stupendous either. It’s just nice. I feel like I’m damning it with faint praise but I just can’t get all that excited about this tea. But I it doesn’t make me think icky thoughts either so that’s gotta count for something, right?

I got a ton of Golden Moon samples in Rachel’s sale that I always wanted to try! thanks so much I don’t love Golden Moon’s sample packets as they seem a LOT of metallic packaging for one cup of tea…they could have a few cups in there! I was hoping I could get two cups out of this package of tea, but nope, I guess I was fooled by the gigantic packaging. There are some pearls but there also seems to be a lot of dustings, unless those are just pearls that fell apart. I waited a long while for the water to cool and steeped for about four minutes. The fragrance and flavor is divine! I love the sweet jasmine. For a couple sips it seemed a bit dry on the mouth but otherwise I love this one. The second steep is just as nice. I’m looking forward to trying the other samples as I LOVE their Sinharaja.

I just wanted to jot down a few words, because I have to run:

Sweet
Fresh
Mild

I think this tastes delicious and uplifting. Pretty much what I expect of a good quality Jasmine Pearl tea.

I think I’m the odd one out on this one! I really liked this tea. The jasmine flavor was definitely there, but was not as overpowering as some of the other jasmine teas that I have tried. I think this will become my new “favorite jasmine tea”. I brewed it in a glass mug so I could watch the pearls unfurl, which is always a fun way to spend some time.

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #2
So, given how small the golden moon samples are, I’ve decided to try and use them up in one go. There’s a little too much in each pouch for my ingenuitea though, so I’ve dusted off my teapot specially for this occasion. Of course, upon doing so, I was confronted with the problem of lid. Or rather, lack thereof. I can’t even find the pieces left after it broke during the move! Did I throw them away (like an idiot)? Ah well, for the moment I have used my MacGyver-like ingenuity to come up with a temporary fix. (It’s a pickle jar lid. Not optimal what with being made of metal and getting kinda hot, but needs must!)

I had a hankering for some Jasmine tea, so I decided to go straight for that rather than letting fate decide this time. The pearls themselves are of course lovely, and watching them unfurl is a treat. The taste is everything I expect from a Jasmine tea, floral with a slight undertaste that reminds me of (and this may sound weird) rice. This is quite delicate though, even after using all of it in my pot, it requires no dilution. Drinking this reminded me of how much I like Jasmine tea, but I’ll have to form a larger basis for comparison before I decide whether or not to buy.