Jasmine Blossom

A case of mistaken identities have placed a hand-delivered non-signed envelope of creepiness in my letterbox today. Print outs of someone else’s private email conversations of a personal nature. In place a VERY personal nature. It’s creepy enough that I’ll be saving envelope+contents for a while and see if anything else happens, because my immediate guess is that somewhere out there there is a betrayed wife thinking that I’m someone else. And she knows where I live. And she doesn’t know that I’m not Not-Me even though Not-Me has the same name as me.

Luckily I have also received a package from TeaEqualsBliss which is MUCH less creepy and in which I found among others this tea with which I will try to calm myself down again. I was stumped by the amount of choice available to me! Eventually I decided that since I needed some fairly quick nerve-settling a bag was the thing to go for this time. I picked this one by closing my eyes and choosing one at random.

I’m a bit wary of the brand. I’ve seen a lot of posts about this brand and most people seemed to find it somewhat mediocre.

It definitely smells jasmine-y while steeping and not synthetic. So that’s one point in favour. The flavour is a bit… brine-y and a bit flowery. It’s not like the jasmine green to end all jasmine greens. But it’s nice enough.

And was it capable to stop my imagination getting out of control RE post intro? To an extent yes, so that’s another point in favour.

made matcha shortbread (5 Ingredient fix Earl Grey Shortbread recipe) using 1 Tbsp matcha and 1 Tbsp Jasmine Blossom Green tea

Biiiig pot of green tea

Gets bitter fast, probably because the green tea base is not the best. But I want that jasmine hit, ooh baby, want it baaaaddd … can’t find a happy medium for steeping this one.

I was tired yesterday. So tired, in fact, that I slept from 5pm yesterday until 6am this morning. I guess that’s the nice thing about Christmas break for college students like me. If I need to sleep for 13 hours, I can. I don’t normally do this. I usually sleep for no more than nine hours but I guess my body clock is just that messed up right now. I start school again this coming monday so hopefully I get it righted in the few days ahead of me.

So I woke up at 6am this morning and then I laid in bed for about 45 minutes listening to music on my wonderful KOSS PRO4AA headphones. They’re big, heavy, and churn out a beautiful sound. I need to get alone with these headphones and my music more often. In any case, after that I kind of stumbled downstairs in the darkness of a winter morning and flicked on the kitchen light. A flash of pain… and a bright turquoise box! Stash Jasmine Blossom tea. Good morning!! I didn’t even know my parents had this but it was on the counter and I wasn’t about to say no to this and yes to my mother’s Red Rose tea bags.

The dry leaf smells… well, like jasmine. And that’s about it. The first sip was… subtly swell, fragrant, the taste a little murky and dusty but not bad. As I progress through the cup there’s more and more of a slightly bitter aftertaste. Perhaps I’ve over steeped it. Oh well. I’m groggy.

I got this in a lovely care package from a friend of mine today. And Lord knows I needed it. I haven’t actually had bagged tea in a long time, but I’m not about to not drink it just because it’s not loose. I’m not that much of a tea snob. I just wouldn’t buy it for myself (though I think I’ll keep the bags in my… bag… for work and stuff like that, when I can’t get up to my dorm).

It’s not a bad tea. It doesn’t quite have the depth of flavor that something like the Jasmine Dragon Pearls from Teavana has, but it’s decent. It’s definitely floral with hints of sweetness. I can’t say I’m going to give up my loose leaf for this, but I’ll certainly enjoy it while I can.

I received this blend in teabags (Stash also sells it loose, I believe) and what can I say? It’s a pretty standard jasmine tea. Tastes like flowers.

It’s worth noting that I was able two great tasting steeps from the teabag, and a third mediocre one. I rarely seem able to get more than one decent tasting brew from a single bag, so three seemed pretty neat.

I found this tea out of desperation. I lived in South Korea for a while, so amazing and affordable jasmine tea (amongst others) was always throwing itself at me. Since I moved back to the U.S. and rural South, this is unfortunately no longer the case.

There aren’t many places in my area to buy loose-leaf tea and bagged tea is hit-and-miss. I went to World Market and could not for the life of me find any jasmine without some other flavoring in it. I don’t like fruit flavorings in my tea, even if they are real, they often seem fake, or the sweetness drowns out the subtleties that I so enjoy. I finally gave up and told myself I would find an Asian market soon, though it would likely be at least an hour drive.

The same week I was shopping at Target and glanced over the teas there. It’s not a large selection, but hey, can’t hurt. I spotted this lovely teal-green box of jasmine, JUST jasmine, and threw the box in my cart without another thought.

I was pleasantly surprised at the flavor of this tea. Though it’s a bit different than what I am used to, it’s quite pleasant, especially for late-night reading. There is no bitterness to this tea, even when I accidentally over-steep it, which is often >.<

This tea was a rare find, for which I am very grateful.

Thought I would revisit this one today…it’s been months! The scent of the Jasmine is overpowering and the tea seems bitter. I am thinking it’s going stale. It’s not dreadful…yet…but I think it’s turning…which is my fault because I let it sit too long…oh well.

Devon Bartholomew Advent Day 21

It was a busy weekend around here, so I have some catching up to do on tasting notes! From what I remember, this was a pretty classic jasmine green tea, which didn’t really stand out in a good or a bad way.