Flowering Teas

what is：
Blooming tea, also referred to as Blossom or Flower tea is a hand-crafted tea, in which edible flowers are tied in a ball of high quality tea leaves. When brewed the blooming tea ball will slowly open, giving the appearance of a blossoming flower.
Artistic flowering tea balls are handmade in China, using green and white tea and real jasmine, chrysanthemum, and other flower varieties like globe amaranth, lily, carnation, acanthus, and marigold. Creation of flower tea balls is a highly specialized ancient art. The finished product is a tight roll of dried tea and flowers, sometimes round, sometimes resembling a mushroom. Shell life of unbrewed tea ball is up to three years.

how to steep：

When you place a teaposy in boiling water, take a moment to relax, reflect, and breathe in the natural aroma of jasmine. The Silver Needle White Tea leaves will slowly open, revealing vibrant flowers hand-sewn into gorgeous designs at the center of the teaposy. This blooming tea is not only beautiful, it also brews the finest tea on the market today, dancing on the palate with floral notes and a light, sweet aftertaste. Each teaposy is also individually vacuum-sealed, ensuring that you can enjoy it at the peak of freshness

how to boil tea

To boil or not to boil

Two common mistakes people often make in preparing hot tea are using boiling water when they shouldn't and over-steeping, says Mojica.

When making her favorite tea, Silver Needle, a premium grade of white tea, Mojica says, "You wouldn't want to use boiling water. It makes the tea bitter, and the same goes for a lot of green teas, white teas and oolongs." Black teas and botanicals (tisanes, or herbal teas), on the other hand, require boiling water in order to extract the flavor.

There's really only one step between making and serving tea, and often it's debated: Should tea be sweetened or not? Mojica says not.

"I tell people to try it without the honey and sugar," she says. "Your palate will get used to it the more you drink it."

But Robertson says that the Watts Tea Shop provides all of the comforts people expect to get with their tea, including sugar, artificial sweeteners, honey, milk and lemons. And at your tea party, you should, too.

There are all sorts of tools to add to the tea experience, especially if you're serving loose tea, which requires straining. You can use ornate cup strainers, mesh tea balls and metal wands, just to name a few.

By the time your tea is ready, it's likely that you'll have a hungry crowd on hand, so be sure to serve a selection of savory and sweet snacks, too, such as finger sandwiches, nuts, desserts and fruit.

"It has a snobby history," Watts' Robertson says of tea, "but it's fun."

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Flowering Teas

Flowering tea

Subtitle

With fruity notes and flowery aromas, the teas are beginning to get dramatic. When you sit down for a pan-Asian fare paired with a cup of hot tea at Thai High in Mehrauli, expect a visual treat — flowers will blossom in your teacup and infuse the water with a pale amber hue and a delicate floral note.

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What is Flowering Tea?

Flowering tea is just what it sounds like—tea leaves made into buds that bloom when they steep in hot water. The buds come in variety of shapes including rounded, mushroom and oblong. They are prepared by using cotton thread to stitch together gourmet tea leaves in a bundle and sewing a dried flower in the center. The tea leaves used include all varieties of tea including oolong, white, black and green. A wide range of flowers are also available and they include lily, hibiscus, chrysanthemum, marigold, rose and peony.

how to steep:

To use flowering tea, place the tea blossom in a glass pitcher. Boil water and pour it gently into the pitcher, filling it to the top. Allow the tea to steep for two to three minutes and watch it twist and unfurl to a bloomed flower. Some tea artisans even make scenes with the blooming teas, often leaving them a surprise for their customers to discover. When the bloom is unfurled, the tea is ready to drink. You may re-use the bloomed flower two or three times, but with some tea varieties the resulting drinks will become bitterer with each usage. Smaller, single cup blooms are also available and provide a beautiful décor to individual tea settings.

Purchasing Flowering Tea

Currently, experiencing flowering tea while out on the town is a rare occasion, unless one happens upon a place that offers the experience. Buying the tea for special home usage is the only option that is now widely available. Specialty tea companies usually offer the tea, the price ranging from 10$ to 85$.

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Flowering Teas

 basic introduction:   A flowering tea, ( blooming tea , performance tea, or decorative tea ) is a small  bundle  of  dried  tea  leaves  and  dried  flowers  bound  together  with cotton thread  into  a  ball.  When  steeped,  the  bundle  expands  and  unfurls  in  a process that emulates  a  blooming  flower . The teas are generally mild and take a few  minutes to begin to impart their flavor to the glass. Typically they are sourced from the Yunnan province of China. Flowers commonly used in flowering teas include globe amaranth, chrysanthemum, jasmine, lily, hibiscus, marigold and osmanthus.Most flowering teas are made with black, green, or oolong tea, and many of them include dried flowers to add color to the floral arrangement when it “blooms” in the teapot. Specialty tea companies carry flowering tea, often in samplers which include a mixture of flavors and arrangements.


good effects:it depends the flower and tea you choose.

Steeping Instructions: Place one Flowering Tea in a teapot (a clear glass teapot is recommended so you may watch it unfurl). Bring water to a low boil and pour over tea. The tea leaves will unfurl and the tea flower will slowly open. Allow to steep 2-3 minutes, or to desired strength.After enjoying the first pot, a Flowering Tea may be re-steeped 2-3 more times. The tea you make should be decanted into teacups within a short period of time so that leaves do not remain in hot water, which would adversely affect the fine taste of this tea. Please note that above estimations are based upon a teapot which holds 18-20 ounces.

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origin of flowering teas:You may hear flowering tea referred to as performance tea, blooming tea, or decorative tea, referencing the beauty of the flower as it unfurls. Most people prefer to brew flowering tea in glass teapots or teapots made from other clear materials so that they can see the flower clearly. It can also be brewed in large clear or white cups, although most flowering teas are designed to provide multiple servings, so a single cup could end up being too strong.

basic introduction to flowering tea

Flowering teas, also known as blooming teas, performance teas, and display teas, among other names, are hand-sewed individual tea leaves forming a ball, and designed to perform an action when steeped in hot water, usually unfurling into decorative flower-like arrangements. Flowering teas are usually prepared in glass or otherwise transparent cups or mugs so that the performance can be seen.

Varieties:
Varieties include small, silvery green tea balls with various flowers which open to release the flowers inside, and teas that are shaped into objects such as plants and animals which expand or change.

Origin:
Flowering tea was created recently in the past 20 years in China. Most if not all flowering tea comes from China, as other tea origins (such as India, Sri Lanka, etc) have not picked up this new trend.

Ingredients: 
Tea
Flowering tea primarily uses green, white and jasmine tea, but black tea is also used in some instances.[citation needed]

Flowers
Common flowers used in flowering teas include globe amaranth, carnation, chrysanthemum, jasmine, marigold, and rose. When added to water just off the boil, flower ball teas will slowly open, or "blossom", into the form of a chrysanthemum-like flower

Preparation:
These teas can be refreshed several times by adding more water as needed, from 5 to 15 times depending on the variety. Flowering teas are fragrant, aromatic teas that do not tend to get bitter with extended steeping.

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