Jasmine Tea

Another entry from the funny family Christmas box, and a surprisingly pleasant one. Wasn’t a fussy steeper. Mild green tea, grassy and not vegetal; mild jasmine, not terribly perfumey. Made a nice afternooner accompanied by a delicious little sunbeam in the front window.

This is my new go-to morning tea. It gets really bitter if I oversteep it, but the jasmine smell is always perfect. I just realized that Steepster seems to allow some text formatting, so I’m going to use this post to test it out.

So far, I know putting an asterisk before and after a word makes it bold

Update: not sure of what allowed text formatting there is besides bold and italics aside from hack-y html injections that messed stuff up!

This was probably one of the first teas I ever drank, I remember heading to London’s Chinatown with my parents to pick up a box when I was just a kid. Good memories.

I brewed it in a teapot, as we always have. Just 1 heaped teaspoon and enough water to fill the pot. At 3 minutes, it was a very aromatic light gold colour. No hint of bitterness and a gentle grassiness from the green tea.

At 5 minutes, it was a fair bit darker and had a noticeable body. I could also detect bitter notes starting to overpower the jasmine.

At 9 minutes the leaves were completely unfurled, the liqueur a rich amber colour and it was incredibly drying and noticeably bitter. Still drinkable, but only with food.

Sunflower jasmine tea is still one of my top picks for a palate cleansing tea.

The aroma has more jasmine than the flavour, and I also found the green tea leaves to have a woodsy/smoky smell when dry.

I wrote an article about my experience with this tea here (with lots of pictures of the tea in action), if you’re interested! https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/sunflower-jasmine-tea-review/

As a Vietnamese person, I basically grew up drinking this stuff, so it’s also one of my first loose leaf teas! Although I consider it to be quite basic now, this tea is a kind of tea that gives me that “home” kind of feeling.

This was one of my first loose leaf teas and completely blew me away with strong floral taste. This is a beautiful tea to have early in the morning.

I’ve been drinking through my lower end stuff to decide what to trade/give away and what to keep, in case you haven’t noticed from my recent reviews.

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I’ve had a couple of mid-level jasmines by now, and I was always put off by how strong the jasmine was. Though the scent of the dry leaves is definitely strong, what comes out in the brew is much more subtle.

I don’t have a lot of experience with Chinese greens, so I’m not sure of the differences in flavor profiles yet for a good green and a bad one. This was…okay. It was a little astringent with some bitterness, which I don’t think was as a result of my brewing, but I suppose it’s possible. Mostly it was a very mild…tea flavor. Like I said, not much to write home about when it comes to the base.

All in all, it was still a pleasant surprise for how cheap this tea is. Though I probably won’t be keeping it, it was sill a pleasant experience.

Me gusta sí, pero lo preparo muy ligerito.

The something of which I drink to with the most is sunflowers. Jasmine tea. It’s good to the last flowery jasmine tea drop,

I picked up a 120 gram tin of Sunflower Jasmine Tea today at the local Korean-run Asian market. I had heard about this brand before, and curiosity kicked in. My understanding is that this tea is a household name in China—as common as Lipton in the states. The tin was incredibly economical at ~$3, so what did I have to lose?

Answer: Nothing! I was surprised by the instructions to steep 3 grams per cup for 5 minutes and using boiling water. That sounded awfully harsh to me—guaranteed to ruin just about any green tea, so I used 76C water and steeped for about three minutes.

The result was pretty good. If I were to factor in the price, I’d have to say that this may be one of the best tea bargains around. There is a flatness to the green tea base—it lacks the sumptuous texture of better green jasmines, and especially good jasmine dragon pearls. Still, it points vaguely in that direction and is perfectly potable with a nice taste and light aroma of jasmine.

The second infusion was better than the first, and I noticed that after the first infusion, the leaves were still constricted—barely hydrated. Maybe that’s why the company calls for a five-minute steep. If the leaves are super dried out (perhaps from age?) then it may take some time to revive them again, which would explain also why my second steep was better than the first.

A propos of age: the tin states that the expiry date is on the bottom of the tin. Nothing is written there, so it’s anyone’s guess how old this tea is. A year? Two years? Five years? Hard to say. It might be possible to find out by emailing the company, but I honestly do not see anything like a lot number anywhere here. Or is the lot number 1030? No, that looks more like the number of the tea, since it is painted with the same red color as “Sunflower”. Not sure.

This is not a great green jasmine tea, but it is a good one—nowhere near the land of Lipton and Salada! I intend to do steep-offs between Sunflower and all of the other jasmine greens I come across, just to see how they measure up. Most of them cost two, three, four, and some even five times what this does. We shall see whether they are really two, three, four or five times better!

Jasmine Tea by Sunflower is the same as Jasmine Tea by Fujian Tea. It is an inexpensive loose leaf green tea scented with jasmine fragrance. Do not follow the packaged insert (pour boiling water for 5 minutes) with this or any green or white tea, as your tea will get bitter (boiling water on greens or white makes the tea release tannins).
Steep it at 175F/79C for 60 to 90 seconds, not longer than 2 minutes. I like 3 grams in 150 to 200ml (about 5 oz to 6.5 oz). You can get a second steep that will taste milder (and better in my opinion). As with any subsequent steep, it will have much less caffeine, but still some antioxidants. I know some people who prefer to discard the first steep, but I drink it.
It’s a good starter tea, for daily consumption, but nothing fancy.