Jasmine Pearls - Fujian Green Tea - Spring 2012 - 100g

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Harvest: Spring, 2012
Harvest Region: Fuding County, Ningde Prefecture, Fujian
Hand Crafted Spring Green Tea
Naturally scented with fresh Jasmine Flowers

Overview:
Our Jasmine Pearls Green Tea is comprised of Spring harvest, 2012 Fuding County green tea that has been hand formed into its distinctive pearl shape and naturally scented with fresh jasmine flowers from Guangxi.

Processing:
Jasmine pearls are processed like a typical Chinese style green tea. Freshly harvested leaf and bud complexes are allowed to wither or wilt slightly to make them less brittle after plucking. Then they are briefly fired in a relatively low temperature wok to kill the oxidizing enzymes that would turn the leaves brown if left unchecked. At this point, the leaves were formed by hand into these distinctive pearl shapes before the drying and scenting process.

Our Jasmine Pearls are scented naturally with fresh jasmine flowers, without the use of artificial flavorings or oils. Naturally scented Jasmine tea is labor intensive and relatively difficult to produce, and the way one producer put it to me was: "you really have to want to produce natural Jasmine tea." What he was getting at was the fact that it is much less time and labor intensive to just toss green tea with scented oils and chemicals to produce a "jasmine flavored" tea instead of a jasmine scented tea.

The scenting process involves multiple drying and scenting steps to produce the finished product. First, the tea leaves are placed into a low temperature oven to reduce their residual moisture content. Then, fresh jasmine flowers are packed in with the dry tea leaves. Since dry tea readily absorbs both moisture and aroma from its environment, the tea leaves absorb the fragrant "juice" from the flowers, scenting the tea leaves with the distinctive aroma of the jasmine flowers. The drying and scenting process is repeated as many as eight to ten times until the desired level of jasmine aroma is accumulated in the tea leaves.

The end result of all this work to process and scent these jasmine green tea pearls is really lovely. When steeped, the tea pearls unfurl into near perfect whole leaf and bud sets interspersed with the occasional dry jasmine flower. The liquor is a crystal clear honey color with a distinctive but not overpowering aroma of jasmine.

Steeping Guidelines:
To steep this tea, my preference leans toward steeping it gong fu style in your favorite fancy gaiwan. For Gong-Fu style, I use about 7-8 grams of leaf in a 150 ml gaiwan, water at about 165-170F, and a series of short steepings starting out with about 20 seconds for the first steeping and gradually increasing the steeping time over the infusions. Of course, please experiment with higher/lower temperatures and/or adjust your steeping times if you find an infusion at 170F to be too light for your taste.

To use a more "western" approach to steeping this tea, I like using about 1 teaspoon per cup, water at about 175 F, and a 2 minute first steeping. For subsequent steepings, raise the water temp a little for each and add some time to each steep. I usually get 2-3 good steepings out of this tea when infused in this manner.

For general steeping guidelines for the different categories of Chinese tea and a short downloadable "how to" video on Gong Fu style tea preparation, please visit our Chinese Tea Steeping Guide page.

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Dry Pearls

Wet Pearls

Infusion