Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Adagio Teas
Product Description:
Jasmine Phoenix Pearls are perfumy, hand-rolled jewels of tea from Fuding, in Fujian province, China. Any fan of jasmine tea should try this specially crafted wonder. When added to hot water, Jasmine Phoenix Pearls majestically unfurl, releasing their delicate scent and flavor. Also known as ‘Jasmine Dragon Pearls’, their liquor is sweet and almost sugary. Very soft, airy mouthfeel. The delicate quality of the flavor is due in part to the leaves used to produce this tea: two tender, tiny new leaves and one plump unopened leaf bud. Younger leaves will yield softer flavor.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This is a little bit like my revisiting a tea, because I did previously review Jasmine Pearls from Adagio. However, since these are loose pearls, and my review was of Adagio’s sacheted Jasmine Pearls – which were part of Adagio Teas’ lovely Artisan Comfort gift box – I feel like I can get away with revisiting this one.
And as you are probably aware by now (assuming that you’ve been reading my blog regularly!), I adore Jasmine Pearls!
I brewed these pearls in my gaiwan and I combined the first five infusions in my designated especially for Jasmine Tea Yixing Mug. And what a lovely experience these Jasmine Phoenix Pearls from Adagio offer! The jasmine notes are soft and sweet and exotic. The green tea has a fresh, subtle vegetal tone that marries beautifully with the flowery essence that has been imparted onto the tender tea leaves by the jasmine flower.
And the fragrance is heavenly! Every time I lift the lid of my Yixing mug and raise it to my lips, my nose is enchanted by the aroma of jasmine and green tea. It’s so wonderfully perfumed without coming across as something you’d find in a bottle of perfume. It doesn’t come across as something that belongs at a department store cologne counter. It is light, airy … almost like a sweet breeze that has been delicately scented with the flower as it passed through the vines of a jasmine plant. So beautiful!
The sip begins with the sweet notes of jasmine that wash over the palate, and as my taste buds experience the soft floral notes, they start to also pick up on the notes of lush green tea. Not really grassy, and there isn’t a heavy vegetative flavor. Instead it just has a soft “green” sort of flavor. It has a soft, silky texture and there’s a hint of buttery flavor to it. The flavor remains smooth through to the finish, and there’s very little notable astringency. The aftertaste is sweet with floral tones.
A really good Jasmine!
Jasmine Pearl Select 2013 Green Tea from Steepster
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Steepster Select
Tea Description:
Picked from the Da Bai Hao cultivar, this high grade green tea is gently picked and hand rolled. The tea is then meticulously dried with fresh jasmine to impart its distinct floral aroma and flavor.
Taster’s Review:
This Jasmine Pearl Select 2013 Green Tea from Steepster is the fifth tea from my February Steepster Select box – and I figured I better get busy and review it because my March box arrived yesterday.
I love Jasmine Pearls, so I was very happy to receive these as part of February’s box. Over on Steepster, most of the tasting notes about this jasmine tea are positive, but I did read one tasting note that suggest that the jasmine notes are too strong, I would disagree with that, because I think that the jasmine here is just right. Then again, I believe that the flavor is very reliant upon how it’s steeped.
I steeped this in my gaiwan, using short steeps (a 15 second rinse, followed by a 45 second infusion, and adding 15 seconds onto each subsequent infusion). I kept infusing until my yixing mug was full – it usually takes five infusions.
The result is a cup of jasmine paradise! The jasmine tastes soft, sweet and exotic, and melds beautifully with the sweet notes of green tea. The green tea is very light and has a subtle grassy taste. It is a delightfully floral cup.
A really wonderful Jasmine.
Jasmine Dragon Pearls from Teasenz
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Teasenz
Tea Description:
SUBTLY SWEET, AND SOFT, AIRY MOUTHFEEL: Perfumy hand-rolled jasmine tea made from the most tender tea leaves and best Fujian jasmines. When added to hot water, the pearls majestically unfurl, filling the room with sweet jasmine scent and flavor.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Jasmine pearls! Yay! I was so happy to receive these Jasmine Dragon Pearls from Teasenz. I love jasmine teas, as I’ve professed many times, and Jasmine Pearls are among my favorite jasmine teas. They are not only “top of the line” when it comes to jasmine teas … but it’s a lot of fun to watch them “dance” in the hot water as they steep – they slowly unfurl from a tightly wound ball into a long, elegant and beautifully fragrant tea leaf – all the while, producing a very flavorful cup of tea.
This particular pearl tea from Teasenz is a real treat. It has a very delicate quality to it … something I noticed immediately when I opened the pouch of the tea. The aroma was light and almost … airy. It evoked thoughts of walking through a path lined with jasmine vines on a cool evening as the gentle breezes capture the exotic fragrance of the jasmine flowers and surround me with the essence of beautiful jasmine. So, I’ve never actually done anything like that … but I’ve imagined in on more than one occasion.
And that’s what I think of when I smell the dry leaf of these Jasmine Dragon Pearls. It’s a delicate, ethereal sort of olfactory experience. The brewed tea maintains that sort of subtle aroma, it is soft and has an almost dreamy quality to it. Really beautiful.
The flavor is also quite delicate, especially when sipped as the tea is still quite hot. Allow the tea to cool for a few moments, and the flavor begins to intensify. Not cold, the tea is still hot … but it’s cool enough to sip. For maximum flavor, slurp the sip, aerating the tea a little bit before it touches the palate. Now the flavors of the sweet jasmine can be tasted and the fresh, buttery flavor of the green tea leaves are also experienced in the sip.
This is a really delightful and beautiful jasmine pearl … soothing and relaxing to sip.
Secret Garden Tea Blend from Kaleisia Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black, Green & White Teas
Where to Buy: Kaleisia Tea
Tea Description:
The most popular blend of all times. This blend consist of white peony white tea, sencha green tea, darjeeling black tea, gunpowder green tea, dragonwell green tea, jasmine pearl green tea, mango, pineaple, papaya, orange peels, strawberry, red currants, sour cherry bits, and apricot bits. A very well rounded fruity tea that is sure to please anyone.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This Secret Garden Tea Blend from Kaleisia Tea has a little bit of EVERYTHING in it! White tea, green tea, black tea … fruit bits … and a whole lot of flavor!
Since this blend seems to be primarily green tea, I went with a lower brew temperature (185°F) and steeped the tea for 2 1/2 minutes in my Breville One- Touch. And the results are tasty!
Fruit flavor hits the palate first, although … it is more like a “medley” of fruit flavors rather than one specific fruit note. Kind of like a bite of ambrosia salad where you taste several fruit notes all at once and it’s difficult to pin-point exactly which fruit you’re tasting. It’s a very refreshing fruit taste though!
As far as tea flavor goes, green tea is what I taste most. That sweet, sort of leafy/grassy note that is very fresh and crisp. It’s a nice contrast with the sweet and sour fruit notes that tantalize the palate at the start of the sip. There is a sweet, creaminess to the tea notes as well, is that the white tea or the buttery notes from the Sencha? I can’t be sure, but, I like the way it comes together with the fruit notes. I don’t taste a whole lot of white tea here, nor do I notice much from the Darjeeling black tea, although I can’t say that this blend would taste the same without those tea leaves being a part of this blend.
As I continue to sip, I realize that I’m tasting mostly a “tropical” sort of taste: notes of pineapple, mango, and papaya, with a strawberry background note. I taste the sweetness of the apricot too. The sour tones of the currant and the cherry come through near the finish, but these are not very strong flavors. The fruit notes, overall, are more “melded” together as a unified flavor … like some kind of “ultra-fruit” but, if I aerate the sip by slurping, I can pick out individual fruit notes.
I like that this blend is more sweet than it is sour, because I’m not a huge fan of the sour taste as I’ve said many times. While this does seem to be a rather “busy” blend … I find it enjoyable. I like it better iced than hot, so, I’ll be brewing more of this later for my iced tea pitcher and enjoy it all day long tomorrow!
Organic Jasmine Pearl Scented Green Tea from Teahouse Kuan Yin
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Teahouse Kuan Yin
Tea Description:
These hand-rolled pearls contain pure tips of silvery spring tea scented with jasmine. Our Jasmine Pearl brews a more fragrant and complex cup than our Yin Hao, and it is beautiful to watch the pearls unfurl during the steeping process. Ours is IMO-certified organic.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I love a good Jasmine Tea … and this Organic Jasmine Pearl Scented Green Tea from Teahouse Kuan Yin is definitely a good Jasmine Tea!
First of all – I LOVE that it’s organic! I love that it’s a scented Jasmine. A few days ago, I had a dreadful encounter with a Jasmine tea that was not scented but instead flavored … and there is a difference! I know I’ve talked about the difference here on this blog before, but for those of you who haven’t read my rant about the difference: basically, a scented jasmine is a tea that has been properly jasmine-ified (yes, it’s a word, I just made it up) … that is to say, the jasmine scent/flavor was achieved by layering the tea leaves with fresh jasmine blossoms, allowing their heady essence to absorb into the leaves naturally. A flavored jasmine, on the other hand, is a tea that has been flavored/scented with a jasmine oil. The result of this process creates a tea that tastes more like perfume than like tea. And it’s just plain nasty.
But this Organic Jasmine Pearl Scented Green Tea from Teahouse Kuan Tin was NOT flavored … it was scented! The leaves were layered with the jasmine flowers! That’s the way to do it! The result is a tea that is pleasantly flavored with the natural essence of jasmine and not a perfume-y substitute. It is beautifully floral.
The green tea tastes lightly vegetative, and melds beautifully with the floral notes. A lovely, contemplative cup. If you like a good jasmine tea … this is one you should try.