birdpick:

Bird Pick’s Tuesday TEAchings: Rose Tea 

Origin:  Bulgaria
Brew: Yellow Emerald
Type: Herbal
Flavor: A floral melody with slightly sweet and earthy undertones

Hand-picked rosebuds from Bulgaria are delicately dried to preserve the whole flower. When brewed, they yield a wonderful fragrance and a light, naturally sweet taste. These rosebuds can be enjoyed when brewed by itself or lightly sprinkled over light-flavored teas.

·         Rose tea is truly a lady’s tea. It not only has attractive colors, but also health benefits to ladies.

·         From Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) on, it has been said to be a widely used drink by the ladies for its many health benefits, namely by helping to calm down unstable moods, sooth the women period pain, improve incretion imbalance, also to quicken the blood circulation.

·         This rose bud tea enjoys high, charming rose flower fragrance and taste. After several times brewing, the rose fragrance still fills around the whole house.

·         It is very sweet, no bitterness at all. After a long/exhausted exercise, or heavy work, drinking rose tea will assist to relax you and regain energy fast.

1/4LB European Rose Tea – 10.00$

Buy Rose Tea here! we ship:)

Aww, “Origin: Bulgaria”! Yey! ^^

(I’m making article with caption “How to judge tea” for my work and I decide to share with you four steps that I found on sevencups.com!)

1) By the look
The shape of the leaf, and the color. The shape varies for different kinds of tea. The unbroken tea leaf is always preferable, whether it is leaf or bud. Bitterness comes from broken leaves. Broken leaves are also a sign of machine-harvested tea. Keep in mind, however, that some tea, especially black tea, is purposefully cut to provide for stronger tasting tea. Also, many oolongs are deliberately ‘bruised’ or abraded to give flavor and improve appearance.
The dry leaves and wet leaves should be examined – wet leaves when they are fully opened. There is a lot to be learned from the wet leaf. How the leaf was oxidized is evident. There are many colors of dry green tea and the way it has been processed can be seen in the color. For example, hand fried leaves will be a little bit yellow, steamed tea has the look of a leafy green vegetable, like spinach, and baked green tea will be a very dark green.
Upon brewing the tea it should become close to the color it was when it was picked. Age will affect the color of the tea water, causing it to be brown or very murky green. The color of black tea water should be bright reddish gold and should leave a ring in the cup. The dry tea leaves from dark fermented oolong, like Wu Yi Mountain and Dan Cong/Phoenix Mountain oolongs are a dark green or brown color. It is said that Tie Guan Yin oolongs appear like ‘a dragonfly’s head’ – the color is a bright to dark green. Anxi oolongs are lighter than Taiwan oolongs. Good green teas in general are smaller, more delicate buds and leaf, and oolongs are a bigger leaf where the ‘serrated’ edge is obvious.

2) By the smell
Generally, there are two smells to consider, the dry smell and the wet smell. The dry smell should be obvious. If there is no smell to the dry leaves, they are very suspect. Green tea should have a light, fresh, soothing fragrance, from a light orchid to a chestnutty smell. Black tea should have a sweet, floral fragrance, and the smell should not be easily lost. The aroma of dry oolongs can range from peach to osmanthus flowers, whilst the smell of Tie Guan Yin should remind you of sweet corn. In judging scented tea (such as Jasmine), the smell should be maintained over multiple infusions. If a scented tea loses it’s smell quickly, the quality is poor. It should be remembered that the fragrance of a tea is just as important in judging a tea as its taste.

3) By touch
Through touch you can determine if the tea leaves are smooth or coarse, whether or not it crumbles easily, and whether it is heavy or light. A good green tea feels smooth, not coarse, and the wet leaves should be tender. Tie Guan Yin should be heavy and dense. Wet tea leaves from the true Tie Guan Yin bush should also be tender, almost like silk, but also sturdy. Whatever the tea, it should not crumble easily; if it does, it has been baked too long or is too old.

4) By the taste
The best way to judge a tea, of course, is by the taste. Green tea should taste fresh, not stale, and should not be too astringent. Black tea should be full bodied and fresh. In general, good tea has a sweet aftertaste and should feel very slippery going down the throat. The aftertaste should linger for a noticeably long time, like the feeling you have after listening to music, when a good tune lingers. Some teas can provide a very interesting taste by sipping some water while the aftertaste is present, the effect being quite dramatic. Remember that tasting tea is like tasting wine: slurp it to aerate it (unlike in Western countries, in China slurping your tea is a sign of appreciation and knowledge and not considered bad manners!), let it slide down the middle of the tongue in one sip, and down the sides of the tongue in the next, followed by the whole tongue with big slurping. Pay attention to the subtleties and the complexity of the tea. A large part of learning to appreciate tea is learning to slow down and pay attention to the subtleties.

Unsure how to brew loose tea?  No need to worry. Brewing loose tea is easy if you start with fine tea, add high quality water and steep to your personal taste. We have given the following general guidelines to get you started.  Feel free to adjust the steeping time or amount of tea to your tastes.

Brewing in 12 oz. Pot; Quantity; Temperature; Time
Green Tea: 1 – 1 ½ Tbsp (3 gms); 180 – 200F; 1 – 2 mins.
White Tea: 2 Tbsp (3 gms); 180 – 200F; 1 – 3 mins.
Scented Tea: ½ Tbsp (3 gms); 200F; 1 – 2 mins.
Oolong Tea: ½ – 2 Tbsp (4 gms); 212F; 1 – 2 mins.
Black Tea: ½ Tbsp – 2 Tbsp (4 gms); 212F; 1 – 2 mins.
Puer Tea: 1 – 2 Tbsp (4 gms); 212F; 1 – 2 mins.

Basic steps For Brewing Loose Tea

1. Select any kind of pot or cup you like.
2. Rinse the brewing vessel with hot water then add the right amount of tea leaves.
3. Pour the right temperature of water over the tea leaves.
4. Wait for the leaves to infuse for the time listed above. Adjust time depending on your taste, longer brews for a richer taste, shorter for a lighter taste.

Brewing Tips

• Don’t forget that all Chinese loose leaf tea can be brewed many times. Subsequent cups will not only yield different flavors but even more nutrition.  Just continue to add more of the same temperature of water over your leaves.
• Leaves of White Tea, Green Tea  or Yellow Tea can be infused about four times.
• Leaves of Black Tea or Scented Tea can be infused about five times.
• Leaves of Oolong Tea or Puer Tea can be infused more than five times.
• Between brews, don’t empty your cup or pot completely. Leave a little bit of water over your leaves to strengthen your next brew.
• Other than your tea, water and vessel, you often won’t need any extra equipment like an infuser basket or ball. Loose tea steeps beautifully on its own! In fact, the most popular way to drink tea in China is to simply put tea leaves in a cup or pot and pour water over them without using any kind of strainer.
• Try brewing your favorite teas in a tall glass. This simple way of brewing tea is popular in China because it allows the drinker to appreciate the shape and color of the infusing tea leaf.  Although most whole tea leaves will settle down to the bottom of your cup once they hydrate, some leaves and buds will still naturally float on the surface of the water. Just blow them out of the way before sipping. By the second or third infusion all of the tea leaves should be at the bottom.

(via sevencups.com)

I made for myself cup of longjing and decide to make a post for this amazing tea.

Longjing tea was granted the status of Gong Cha, or Imperial tea, in Qing Dynasty by Chinese emperor Kangxi. According to the legend, Kangxi’s grandson Qianlong visited West Lake during one of his famous holidays.

He went to the Hu Gong Temple under the Lion Peak Mountain (Shi Feng Shan) and was presented with a cup of Longjing tea. In front of the Hu Gong Temple were 18 tea bushes. Emperor Qianlong was so impressed by the Longjing tea produced here that he conferred these 18 tea bushes special imperial status. The trees are still living and the tea they produce is auctioned annually for more money per gram than gold.

There is another legend connecting Emperor Qianlong to Longjing Tea. It is said that while visiting the temple he was watching the ladies picking the tea. He was so enamored with their movements that he decided to try it himself. While picking tea he received a message that his mother, the Empress Dowager was ill and wished his immediate return to Beijing. He shoved the leaves he had picked into his sleeve and immediately left for Beijing. Upon his return he immediately went to visit his mother. She noticed the smell of the leaves coming from his sleeves and he immediately had it brewed for her. It is said that the shape of Longjing Tea was designed to mimic the appearance of the flattened leaves that the emperor brewed for his mother.

Longjing, which literally translates as “dragon well,” is said to have named after a well that contains relatively dense water, and after rain the lighter rainwater floating on its surface sometimes exhibits a sinuous and twisting boundary with the well water, which is supposed to resemble the movement of a Chinese dragon.

Legend also has it that to achieve the best taste from Longjing, water from the Dreaming of the Tiger Spring, a famous spring in Hangzhou, is to be used. The water quality of the spring now is certainly very different than before.

(via wikipedia)