Spring, glorious Spring.In spite of this morning's frost, we are all still happy that the sun is shining. The creeks are all bubbling away and more and more birds arrive every day. It's hard to stay inside, even long enough to taste a new tea!
I'm hitting the teabags again – I've gotten quite a few in swaps and I want to use them up – gotta down-size, you know! LOL. Ten Ren Tea packages their bags in bright colorful individual wraps. The one I am trying – Jasmine Oolong is in a pretty two tone green one. It is a mix of Jasmine tea and Oolong tea, not jasmine scented Oolong, as I thought. When I opened it I immediately smelled the Jasmine, with an overlay that I can only describe as Oriental. Reminded me of shopping in an Asian store – maybe a scent of incense. Yes, that's it, jasmine flower and jasmine incense. But evocative, not hit you over the nose. I brewed it with water about 195 degrees for about 2 minutes and the aroma stayed the same throughout. Very pleasant. The taste was true to the scent – jasmine flower with that teasing waft of incense. It was quite good until it began to cool and then there was a big whack of bitterness that you get when something is over brewed or your water is too hot. Phooey. I wish I had more so I could experiment, because this is a very nice tea. Actually, if I had gone to their site first I would have brewed it at a lower temp. Doh!
1 comment:
Ten Ren's tea bags were instrumental in getting me into tea. My family often drank loose black tea when I was growing up, but they liked very strong tea which I'm less a fan of. I had never had quality green or oolongs before I tried some of Ten Ren's teas that a friend gave me. The Ten Wu tea in particular grabbed my attention, and also the Jasmine Oolong. And I also found that both of these teas were a bit picky about brewing temperature!
My reviews of them:
http://ratetea.net/tea/ten-ren/ten-wu-fine-oolong/467/
http://ratetea.net/tea/ten-ren/jasmine-oolong/457/
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