Tea of Life

A while ago I received a tea gift from a friend. The teas were from Tree of life, which is a Sri Lankan [aka Ceylon] company. They are all tea bags individually wrapped in cute little cardboard pyramids. Today I am trying their Jasmine Orange Green tea. The bags are probably nylon, quite large and filled with loosely rolled balls and some twisted leaves of green tea. I am amazed, as I had expected just little bits. There is a very nice scent of Jasmine, not at all light, but not cloying. I brewed up a cup at about 180 degrees for 2 minutes. I was further surprised to discover the tea had not fully unfurled and opened the bag to brew it some more in another cup.

There aren't a lot of nuances to this tea. It is quite drinkable with a very pleasant taste and smell of jasmine, with enough orange to hold its feet on the earth. The tea leaves are clearly two leaves and a bud, which just blew me away. Not what I expected at all. The second cup was pretty weak, but there was still a discernible scent and taste of jasmine. As I often do, I combined them and it was a decent cup.

As you may know, if you've been reading my blog for a while, I am not a big fan of fruited teas. They are usually too sweet, too muddied, too fake, too something or other for me. However, in one of the teablogs I was reading, the author said she deals with this by mashing up some fruit, adding a bit of lemon juice and making ice cubes. When frozen she pops them out into a bag and when she wants fruit in her tea, she uses one of them. Now that I am going to try. I already have some frozen blueberries and blackberries and homemade strawberry freezer jam.

Another idea I saw, but I had been thinking about anyway is rosemary in my tea. I absolutely love rosemary. Sometime when you are cooking fresh carrots, stick a big piece in with them – loverly. Anyway, I have been thinking about mixing it with a Ceylon or a strong Assam and perhaps some orange peel, as that seems a good combo to me. Hopefully this week I'll do that.