Blueberry White

The Bai Mu Dan is strong with this one.

//bad Star Wars reference.//

I’m not a big Bai Mu Dan fan. Too earthy, too woodsy. The blueberry in the smell is beautiful, but it’s overpowered in the cup.

It’s okay. It came as a gift from my friend. I’m open to swapping.

Edit: Second steep better. Not as fuzzy. More blueberry.

No matter how short I try to steep it, this is not going to work. Maybe I haven’t played around with the steeping times enough, but any shorter, and I don’t think there would be any flavor at all.

Ok, so you open the jar, and the smell is just completely blueberry. It’s not a bad smell, but the fact that the bitterness is apparent as soon as you open it is a bad sign. The package suggests a steeping time of 5-6 minutes. To that, I say: you have gotta be kidding me. Even with steeping times around 2 and a half minutes, the taste is just all bitterness, astringency, and maybe the tangy bite of blueberry.

Blueberry and white tea isn’t a bad idea. What is, however, is the fact that the leaves come in clear glass containers. WHITE tea leaves. I bought this before I knew that light would have a bad effect on tea leaves. I found this at a convenience store, sitting underneath bright fluorescent light for who knows how long. Maybe it’s not the tea, then, but the godawful packaging.

So my husband’s coworker and I are tea pen-pals. We send each other tea to try out. This is one that she didn’t like but hoped I would have better lucky with. Well, the leaves are so small and don’t seem to be great quality that the first steep is actually pretty disgusting and has to be dumped. The 2nd steep a little less so and the third, it actually starts tasting good (though I did add honey), but that’s really too much effort for a tea (also the instructions to steep for 4-5 minutes is ludicrous – not unless you want a sour taste in your mouth for the rest of the day). I mean, even Adagio does white tea better, and it’s not really seen as high brow (or high priced for that matter). I think the small “leaves” have something to do with the taste and maybe also the clear glass jar.

Usually I love Argo, so this has put me off trying any other whites from them. It’s almost like the tea shavings you’d get in low quality bags. Sadness.