Panda Pearls

Loose
Appearance: fuzzy bicolored pearl curls
Aroma when Dry: sweet, bright, light floral
After water is first poured: floral honeysuckle, cherry blossom notes
At end of first steep: floral, fruity, cantaloupe notes surface
Tea liquor:
At end of first steep: clear
Staple? likely
Preferred time of day: any
Taste:
At first ?: light fruity, mineral notes, honeysuckle, berry, melon notes high on the palate
As it cools?: tea gets bodied, brothy, sweeter, salt close
Additives used (milk, honey, sugar etc)? No
Lingers? Only slightly, mineral notes

Second Steep (4min):
At first: light mineral melony notes
As it cools: bodied mineral broth

Third Steep (5min):
faintly sweet mineral broth

2nd infusion…added 4 more pearls. So…we are up to 16 pearls. I infused for 15+ minutes.

Color darkened to a pale yellowish color. Still no scent. But there is more flavor! YAY!

This is quite tasty but I had to use quite a bit…about 3 times the amount suggested…and twice as long infusion-wise.

It’s a hydrating type taste sweet and almost juicy.

If you have patience to fiddle with this both in amount and length it might work for you. it wouldn’t be the first one I would grab…but – end result…it’s pretty yummy.

Third steeping.

It has turned very vegetal and puts one in mind of fresh mown grass -but in an oddly pleasant way. So far I’ve yet to find anything distinctly non-pleasing about this tea; each flavor that comes out is enjoyable.

I’m not sure I can stretch this to another steeping, but will give it a try.

Yummmm! What a white tea should be :-)

so i made a cup of tea with the 7 pearls and it was VERY nice i really enjoyed the subtle Sweetness and was so wonderful at work to calm me :)

I feel like I am doing something wrong with this tea.

I used 8 pearls in an 8 oz. cup. The pearls appeared to have a hard time unfurling. Even after leaving them in the cup for 10 minutes only one leaf completely unfurled, and the others only partially. The liquor is almost clear, slightly straw colour. The colour becomes a bit darker the longer you steep it, but still remains clear. The taste was very mild and mellow, not so much vegetal or grassy, but a bit more like wheat or grain, slightly sweet.
I generally don’t like to steep for to long, but this is a tea that I can leave the tea leaves in the bottom of the cup for as long as I’m drinking it, and it doesn’t adversely affect the taste.
I am going to play around a bit with water temp and steeping time to see what happens.

The name of this tea caught me attention right away when I dug it out of the Canadian Traveling Teabox – it just sounds so fun and cute. Most ‘pearl’ type teas are jasmine so it was nice to see something a bit different. I didn’t see the instructions about the number of pearls so I just used my usual measuring spoon – I don’t think I ended up with too many more than what they recommend. *shifty eyes *

The first steep at 3.5 minutes is very vegetal – in fact the flavour reminds me quite a bit of broccoli. I can’t say that’s a ringing endorsement – I used to utterly loath broccoli as a kid and while time and maturity have lessened my hatred it’s still never going to be my favourite vegetable. The second steep at 4.5 minutes was thankfully less broccoli-ish, though still quite vegetale, but this time a nicer, sweet note crept into the mix.

So ultimately this tea doesn’t rock my socks, but that’s mostly due to my highly-subjective brassica-phobia. ;)

This tea is from the trade I had a few months ago with Lala! Thanks for this generous sample!
I made some of this one to share with my student from Maryville University.
5G + Test Tube Steeper (5 or 6oz?) X 3min
That yielded a beautiful pale gold liquid, which I served in those tiny double walled glass ‘jello shot’ cups. It is a delicate & mild cooked cereal taste, like congee or a very light cream of wheat. The pearls were only about half open.
Re-steep x 5 minutes = the pearls are fully open, the color is now a pale apricot. The tea is still mild, but pleasant.
White teas are more interesting to me than they were a year ago, but they are not the teas I reach for, if you know what I mean.