Two Dragons and a Pearl Flower Tea

I was in a strange mood this morning. First of all, it is exactly a year since we were in Ireland, and I feel myself transported there many mornings. I guess it is the angle of the light and the temperatures that are making the memories so powerful, plus it was my first time traveling and we rented a townhouse instead of staying in a motel so we felt more like “natives.”

Anyway, I felt restless and wanted something special since I couldn’t pull on my shoes and walk down the street for my pot of tea and my scone. I thought about hot chocolate but it is actually still pretty hot here at home. Then I thought about baking, but I wanted something quick.

I thought about this blooming tea and it was just what I needed to make the day special. I steeped it in a tall wine glass, poured off the first steep into a tiny glass pot, then resteeped for a very long time. This second steep was strong, so I added hot water and it was perfect and meanwhile the third steep stood before us on the table in all of its glory. It had now fully unfurled and was looking beautiful, and gave a holiday air to the whole room sitting there the rest of the day. I am definitely reordering this. I gave one or two to my son to use for romantic date nights with his GF, so i only have one left! This is my favorite flowering tea to date.

It is beautiful to look at, but it also tastes really special, and that is the only reason I would buy it. If it didn’t taste good, it wouldn’t really be worth it to me to keep it around. This is a good silver needle though, and you can let it steep a long time and still enjoy it. The jasmine notes are really light, just a little boost of sweetness really.

I was looking for something fun to try tonight while get ready to watch some Sherlock Holmes episodes staring Jeremy Brett (my first Sherlock). I was digging into my sample bin and I found this one. I was nervous to try it at first because I am not a huge fan of lots of bits of tea getting into my cup. (Long story)

I went for it. I’m glad I did. Not only did it brew up a pretty pot of tea. But it is also a pretty yummy cup of tea. Very fragrant and also smells slightly sweet too. The taste reminds me of something between a green and an oolong. I might be in love! I might also have to ask Santa to bring me some for the holidays!

Rumpus Parable sent this to me AGES ago and I feel terrible I’m just now making a tasting note for it. thank you so much for sending! This is in the Steepster Select pouch, and wow those Steepster Selects must have been fun. I’ve only had one blooming tea before. I think it looked exactly like this one too.. just from a different company. So I had my clear mug out and I think I waited too long for the water to cool…it wasn’t quite boiling. This is a green tea after all and I thought the flavor would go bitter. The bloom was floating and it did take a while to unravel. I waited five minutes and decided to have a second steep later to watch the entire bloom unravel with actual boiling water… the green leaves unfurled, seeing a bit of the red flower. The flavor isn’t bitter at all and has a seaweed and asparagus flavor.

The second steep I used just boiled water and the bloom opened right up. I decided to just keep the bloom in the cup as I was drinking… I thought it’d be nice to look at! But twenty minutes later I took a sip and the cup was FULL of undrinkable bitterness! I guess twenty minutes was a bit too long. Any other tea I would have known this, but it was so nice at five minutes which is very unusual for a green tea. Ah well. Somehow this is elaborate but the flavor wasn’t quite right even in the first cup. Luckily, everything else from Teavivre is much more delicious!

This is only the second flower tea that I’ve tried. The other one also was a great Teavivre sample.

This Two Dragons and a Pearl Flower tea has a mildly sweet and grass-like flavor. The color is light yellow. This tea tastes very similar to one of Teavivre’s green blends.

I don’t go out of my way to sample flower teas. I find the flower brewing method a little bit of an intrusion. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by my one touch tea maker which does just about everything for me except drink the tea.

This tea does have a nice mild flavor without bitterness. And, I did enjoy watching the little rolled up tea bundle open and “bloom” into a flower nestled in leaves during the brewing process. In fact, I think I like WATCHING flower teas more than DRINKING them!

This was a free sample provided by TeaVivre. Thanks so much!!

I was initially quite hesitant about trying this (as is evident by having tried everything else quite a while ago) both because I didn’t think I had a glass suitable for viewing, and because I wasn’t really sure about the floral nature of the tea.

But, I found the perfect glass mug (in my cupboard, who knew?) so I set out everything and got it out and ready to go. My particular ball took a while to open fully (like, well over 5 minutes) and I’m assuming I should have taken it out but it was such a beautiful thing to watch that I lost track of time. When I finally poured the tea out and into a different cup it was quite dark and smelled very floral.

Luckily it didn’t taste overly floral – I mean there were obvious notes but I also think that there was definite green tea (kind of even buttery!) in there as well. It was slightly bitter (my own fault because I was distracted by the show). Definitely a nice tea, but nothing spectacular – the bloom is really the selling point, and it is nice if you’re into that sort of thing.

Tried a different brewing method today by bringing the water to a boil, pouring into the pitcher, then added the pod. The old method of pouring water over the pod works better. This way the bloom remained floating on top the water for a very long time. It did eventually sink and fully open but I was beginning to wonder. The bloom is very pretty with a silver needle cradle holding a marigold while an arch of jasmine flowers rises above it to hold a globe amaranth. A few loose needles fell off but overall the display stayed intact. The brew is pale amber with a green tint.

Once again the flowers dominate. I believe the primary flavor here is the marigold. It is not an unpleasant taste but also not one I associate with tea. A bit milky? I think this would be good with honey. Not having any honey, I used sweetener. I like the taste of this better than the True Love flower tea but the display isn’t as spectacular.

Final note – while drinking the first cup, I left the remainder of the pot to steep to see what would happen. The result was a dark reddish brown tea resembling OP iced tea. Amazingly it made little difference to the flavor. No bitterness. No astringency. Mostly marigold flavored brew. As with most of my flower tea ratings I combine my sipping pleasure with the visual aspect and skew the rating slightly on the display side.

My first note about a flowering tea! You might have guessed that I used the “random pretty and relevant word” method of username choosing rather than naming myself after my favorite tea.

The main draw of this tea is definitely the appearance, and it is rather pretty. However, it’s rather tasty as well — I’d call it vegetal (and despite the several flowers that are present, there’s no real floral taste). As I tend to do with flowering teas, I never took the tea out of the glass, and as I’ve come to appreciate in others, that doesn’t hurt the flavor except at the very bottom of the glass. Perhaps because of this quality, the taste isn’t horribly complex; I would choose this only if I was in the mood to watch my tea blossom, since there are plenty of more typical teas that taste just as good if not better.

This is quite delicious. I never thought I would find a flowering tea to taste good, but this one is light and not heavy on the flowers at all. A slightly buttery, slightly veggie but in a mild way, kind of green tea. Little bit of jasmine and…something else floral. These are things I like right now.

Looks cute when blooming too :)

Check out our video-tasting here: http://blip.tv/the-tea-show/teavivre-flower-tea-6159996

Tried this last night. As in, I tried to get this to work. It never opened up, and the tea itself was lacking. It wasn’t fragrant OR sweet. It wasn’t bitter, though…it just wasn’t anything. So odd.

I wound up leaving the little bulb in water for the entirety of my Law and Order: SVU marathon, and had something else. STILL didn’t open up, so I smashed it open with a spoon. Would have been pretty, if it had worked, lol. Gave the tea to my plant. At least something got to drink it.