Getting into hot water…flowering tea

If you’re a tea-lover as I am, I encourage you add to the pleasure of your tea experience by periodically indulging in a flowering tea.  Besides the flavor of the tea, you will also engage your sense of sight with the gradual opening and eventual beauty of the flower.

Each flowering tea bundle is made by hand, by binding dried tea leaves around one or more dried flowers.  As the flower steeps, it opens gradually, in mimicry of a real flower’s progress from bud to flower, the tea leaves imitating leaves on or around the flower once opened.  Can you imagine taking the time to do this in the pursuit of beauty for someone else?  Probably not, but you certainly enjoy the results.  I have to admit that sometimes the flower looks more like some sort of exotic sea creature, but who cares?  It looks intriguing and beautiful no matter what you think it resembles.

As with any tea, first rinse the pot with boiling water:  swirl a small amount of water around the pot, then dump the water out.  Put the flowering tea bundle into the pot and pour the hot water over it.  The temperature of the water depends on whether the tea around the flower is black or green.  If black, boiling water will be fine; if green, use water just under boiling.  Black tea will generally steep 3-5 minutes, green 2-3.  Be sure you have enough room for the flower to open.  My husband bought me an inexpensive glass teapot so I could enjoy the view.  It just wasn’t the same in a 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup!!

You can generally re-steep a flowering tea another time.  If you want to do this, you could take it out of the pot after the requisite time and set it aside for the next pot.  Or if you will be pouring the entire pot out right away, you can leave it in the pot for the next brewing.  I’ve done both and I’ve left it in the pot and re-steeped it later, oh heretic that I am.  🙂

Here’s the progress of my flowering tea today:

Choices

Heating the pot

Flowering

For a more professional look at flowering tea, watch this video.  Then get your own flowering tea and have some bloomin’ tea!