After tasting a flower tea recently, I have gained new appreciation for all the foreign (non-Chinese) teas that people drink for fun. During my dear mother’s birthday celebrations, we mixed a gift to her, 龙井茶(aka Longjing, dragon well, etc) with a gift to her dear granddaughter, rose buds. The resulting tea is very aromatic but lacks the strong bitter taste this green tea has when steeped by itself.

I guess I am starting to appreciate some flowers in my tea. Although in this particular encounter, green tea is new crop and rose buds were harvest at least 10 months ago. The rosebuds definitely lost a lot of its original coloration and aroma by the time we used it. This gave the tea a very slight hint of rose flavor, leaving us the palate to enjoy bitterless green tea.

This was vry interesting! But I still can’t stand too much flower in green tea, I still want that translucent scent and transmittance when I drink my green tea. plus the weather here in Northern California is so warm that drinking flower tea with milk, sugar and infused oils is simply too much calories for the taste. Corollarily I now have espressos and no longer drink any of those prepared coffee drinks, milk, sugar, turmeric and all.

If you’re a non-Chinese tea drinker, maybe lighten it up a bit and give rose bud and longjing a try.