Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Blooming Tea Show and Tell

One of our more novel holiday gifts was a blooming tea set, a small glass teapot and an assortment of tightly furled tea balls. I'm generally a stuffy purist when it comes to tea and tend to think blooming tea is to good tea what faux fur is to good yarn. But the show is entertaining, so I thought I'd share it.

Tea balls start out about the size of a walnut and usually can be used to make several pots of tea. Here's one sitting in the well of a saucer.

Tea ball before

Some blooming teapots are proportioned like coffeepots, taller than wide; this one is a conventional teapot shape. It makes two servings.

Tea ball in the pot

The tea ball unfurls rapidly in hot (but not boiling) water. The pink flower is a globe amaranth, which has little aroma. Some tea balls smell like tea, some like jasmine or lily.

Unfurling

The color and flavor of the tea develops more slowly. Blooming teas tend to be on the mild side, the better to show off the flowers. For reasons that escape me, this teapot lid fits so tightly that when it's in place, the tea won't pour. Maybe to keep subtle fragrances in? Except there's nothing particularly subtle about blooming tea.

Steeping

The tea itself looks like tea, so I didn't bother to take a picture of it. Some tea balls turn into tasty tea, but I threw out this particular pot after a couple sips. I suspect it could unclog stuck pipes.

Tea ball after

Above is a different tea ball after a couple uses, sitting in the same saucer, with a Western tea ball for scale. The blooming tea ball expanded a lot initially, but didn't change much after its first immersion in hot water.

That's blooming tea as I know it. The End.

6 comments:

knitarooooo said...

Interesting -- I've never heard of blooming tea.

Think I'll stick to my English Breakfast ;o)

Jessica said...

I'm so sad that blooming tea doesn't taste good! I saw this in my Republic of Tea catalog and totally wanted to try it. Ah well. Thanks for saving me some cash!

Kaye said...

That's pretty cool. I dig the tooty-fruity teas myself. Not as entertaining as this for sure!

craftivore said...

I just took some blooming tea photos too! Photo on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/craftivore/4271442997/

Ina said...

Some blooming teas are tasty, others not so much. The appeal is really in the visual novelty.

Deborah said...

i always have trouble throwing them away :(