Tea Emperor

One could say that we have a tea collection, but to say so would be incorrect. We merely buy more loose tea than what we consume. Poor is the faith of some of our purchases as tempting tea packages lay in some forgotten cupboard corner only to be tossed to the trash.

MAINLY LOOSE TEA

As you can see from the photo below there are mainly loose teas in our collection, but we have made some room for daily quick fixes and few specialties. With quick fix I refer to the morning bulk bag tea, which is fast, black, cheap and easy. Come to think of it that is almost how I like my women, but don’t tell that to the Empress…

Our collection of loose teas.

FEW SPECIALTIES

These we get from our travels to Asia and Northern Europe. Let’s face it, in Asia they know how to make a good cup of tea and in Northern Europe they have pristine nature with all sorts of wild plants just dying to be dried and labeled as X tea. So you want an example? Birch leaf tea, Bilberry leaf tea, Bilberry berry tea, Buckthorn tea, Cloudberry tea and then there are all those meadow herbs… I’d like to see them grow those in the Orient.

THE TEA COLLECTION

The good thing about having more than one tea brand in your slate is that you can offer more variety for the visitors, and more importantly, you can add some taste into your life just the way you need it. For some people tea collection might be a source for little competitive spirit. There’s nothing wrong in real tea collections, but remember that very few teas age well.

It is hard to tell, which is more correct blooming tea or blossoming tea. I will call this tea as blooming tea. Chinese are pretty clever people what comes to marketing. Their long culture is full of fables that are still present in today’s modern world. When you think of it, it is perfectly normal because people have not changed. Anyway, blooming tea borrows from the most natural celebration of life – blooming flowers.

WHAT IS BLOOMING TEA?
This tea is hand-tied into the form of a sphere and it really quite looks like a flower bud. On the outer layer it has long tea leaves and inside the sphere hides a real flower. Leaves are tied together from the bottom to form the stem of the bud. When you add water to the vessel that holds a blooming tea bud it will float in the beginning. Soon the water seeps in to the bud and it starts to descend to the bottom. Water opens the bud and the tea blooms magnificently. The process takes less than a minute, but all that time one is mesmerized with the display. This tea is fantastic dessert surprise for formal and informal parties.

THE TASTE OF THE BLOOMING TEA
Like it is with every tea and coffee, different brands and varieties do have different tastes. It is the same with blooming tea, but one thing holds true. Blooming tea will remain in your tea cup or tea glass (I strongly recommend a tall glass to get the best out of the experience) until consumed so the tea that is used in binding can’t be too strong, otherwise the taste of the ready blooming tea would be too bitter. Naturally the result is that blooming tea doesn’t handle well with repeated infusions.