Layla Teapot and Jasmine Flowering Tea from Primula

I was lucky to receive a Primula Layla Teapot and flowering tea set from a friend  The Primula teapot features all-glass construction, even the brewing basket is clear.  It has an impressive capacity, making it perfect for sharing a blooming tea session with a few friends.

The flowering tea set came with blooming tea balls, which make good use of the transparent, glass-bodied teapot.  I’m not sure which flavor of blooming tea was included, as it lacked a label, but I suspect it is their house blend jasmine bloom.

This is the first blooming tea I’ve actually conducted myself.  Previously I’ve always been viewing at someone else’s tea party.  Now that I have a teapot so suited for blooming teas, I’ll have to try this type of tea more often.

On an afternoon where I needed some zen, I brewed up a pot of hot water and dropped in the tea ball.  As the water soaked into the leaves, they slowly peeled back, like a hand opening its fingers. The process did take a few minutes and I found myself impatient at first.  As I relaxed, I found I was surprised how much the bloom was changing in each moment, until we finally reached the unfurling of the pink, center blossoms.

I poured a small cup of the tea to sip on while the bloom continued to relax its leaves.  The tea brewed up a golden color, clear and bright, making the blossom look sunlit from every angle.  The tea tasted mainly of jasmine, but had a surprisingly earthy undertone almost like the sweet-floral notes of cacao or dark chocolate.  I like jasmine pearls, but it was nice to have a deeper flavor balance to the light, flowery notes.

I sipped on the tea all afternoon and watched the leaves continue to soak until they were saturated with tea.  It was a lovely experience and the Primula flowering tea set would make a great gift. I can’t wait to brew more tea in this lovely teapot!

 


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type: Green tea/TeaPot
Where to Buy: Primula
Description:

Create an unforgettable and extraordinary tea experience with this crystal clear glass teapot and accompanying flowering tea blossoms. The Layla glass teapot and tea set offers a generous 36 oz capacity. Serve up to 9 cups of tea in this stunning clear glass tea set, which offers the perfect window from which to watch the included tea flowers begin to bloom in colorful profusion as they steep. After tea, cleanup is easy because this BPA free borosilicate glass teapot is both microwave and dishwasher safe.

Each tea flower has been exceptionally crafted by artisans in China to create the hand-sewn green tea with all natural tea flowers. The green tea is blended five times with jasmine to emanate an ambrosial floral fragrance. Each package contains 12 different flowering teas along with an illustrated picture and health benefit guide. Choose a pot of Floral Passion, Noble Madam, Oriental Beauty or Camellia Joy. Or watch your cup erupt with Wild Flowers, Gilded Lotus, Lover’s Blossom or Juliet’s Kiss. Other popular flavors like London Fog, Butterfly Floret, Fairy Lily and Summer Bouquet complete your choices in the taste sensation. Try all twelve green tea blends and be amazed at how each bud delivers a delectable cup of tea and an optical sensation. Each tea blend is packed with healthy anti-oxidants and can be steeped three times giving you over 250 cups in each canister. These tea flowers make an excellent gift for special occasions and are something any tea lover would enjoy.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

Asha Teapot With Flowering Teas from Primula. . . .

I was so excited to get tea mail containing a blooming tea set from Primula tea to review. Primula, in case you are not aware, is a drinkware company. According to the website the companies “reputation is founded on creating quality products that make people happy to use or gift” The set includes a very large 60 oz teapot, Primula’s largest glass teapot, along with 3 flowering teas. The teapot is delicate but sturdy and I love the green leaf accent on the lid. It includes a green glass infuser. The infuser has small lines cut into the glass to allow the tea to diffuse into the water. While I love the aesthetic of the glass infuser I find that they are not always the best for tea making. The slotted lines can allow smaller teas such as those with rooibos to escape into the water. Overall I think that this is a lovely teapot that is a perfect size to accommodate a larger tea-drinking group and works well to showcase flowering teas.

The teapot also came with three of their flowering teas. Unfortunately there was not any literature included regarding the teas which I found to be a bit odd. I took a look at their website and discovered that the flowering teas have been with Primula since they started the company in 1991 and they continue the product line-up because of the popularity of the teas. All of their display teas are hand-crafted in China from AA grade green tea and flowers. Because the set didn’t come with any information on the tea I was able to deduce that the star-shaped flowering tea I enjoyed was a jasmine-scented green tea. According to their site the green tea is blended with jasmine five times to fully immerse the green tea in the Jasmine scent. There are 12 different types of jasmine green flowering teas offered however it is not clear what the name of the tea was that I tried so I can only identify it as the star-shaped tea.

I steeped the tea at a green tea temp, 175 degrees, for around 5 minutes, the time it took for the flowering tea star to fully unfurl. I am conflicted with this because I tend to enjoy my jasmine green teas with short steep times, around a minute. The longer the star steeps the more intense the jasmine becomes. Not to say this is a bad thing, it just develops and becomes more floral. Overall I liked the flavor of this tea. It was light, slightly vegetal with an underlying sweetness and a heavy jasmine scent. I was worried that a novelty tea like this would be lacking in flavor but I was pleasantly surprised.

I think that a flowering tea and a clear glass teapot are items that every tea connoisseur should have in their tea collection. If you are in the market for either of these items I would certainly give Primula a try!


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type:  Teapot with Flowering Teas
Where to Buy:  Primula
Description

The Primula Asha 60-oz. Glass Teapot is our largest glass teapot; it was designed with entertaining in mind. Made of heat-resistant borosilicate glass with a decorative glass leaf lid, this glass teapot includes a glass infuser in a beautiful contrasting hue, designed for steeping your favorite loose tea blend. The Asha Teapot includes three flowering teas, making this an ideal gift for tea lovers.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

My Tea Pot from Minos. . . . .My New Best Friend. . . . .

Sometimes having the right tea pot makes all the difference in the world.  I have so many different tea contraptions galore to brew up a cuppa.   I have  graviteas , those cutesy silicone tea infusers, stainless steel infusers, mesh ball infusers, infusers that fold up and travel along with you. . . .and that doesn’t count the 15 to 20 tea pots I have that I’ve acquired over my 10 to 15 year tea journey.

Recently,I was promoted to a different position in my company that has required a lot more hours.  As a result, working from home has become a bit of the norm .  This way I can basically start working as soon as I get up and have the ability to work as long as I need to. To give myself a bit more of a work environment, my hubby and I decided to dedicate one corner of our family room to my new “office area”.   So a quick trip to IKEA yielded an awesome desk set up along with a marvelous chopping board that could double as a tea tray.  I couldn’t be happier with the result.

At about the same time I was working on setting up my new desk, this beauty arrived at my doorstep from Minos.

This tea pot is gorgeous! I’ve had stainless steel tea pots before but not like this one.   Being the perfect size, this tea pot fits effortlessly into my new work environment  and I’m quite in love.

 

This 17oz tea pot with a built infuser is now my favorite piece of teaware.  I can easily brew up a session of whatever tea I am craving at the time to keep me going long into the night.  Being stainless steel, the tea pot does retain heat so the tea is quite hot right at the beginning and I’m not going to lie here, I have burnt myself a few times on the tea pot, but Minos has included three silicone rings that easily sit into the handle- providing a way for tea drinkers not to get burned.  I am just incredibly clumsy and filled the tea pot a bit to full-which caused the tea pot to become a bit unbalanced-which resulted in my knuckle getting in the way.

 

Regardless, this tea pot has stolen my tea loving heart and has actually helped me adult through these long work mornings and evenings I’ve been having.  Sometimes you just need that one piece off teaware to up your tea game and for me, Minos’s tea pot has done just that.  Along with this brilliant tea pot, Minos also offers a matching creamer pitcher and sugar bowl.  Both I’m just in awe over as well, but the tea pot is my favorite piece of the three.

I’ve brewed up oolongs, green teas, black teas, herbals. . . you name it, I’ve used this tea pot and without fail, this tea pot has yielded brilliant after brilliant cuppas to keep me going.  The pour is perfection and I’ve actually found that my tea drinking has actually increased. . .something I didn’t think couldn’t happen.  I’m just in love!


Here’s the scoop!

Where to Buy:  Minos
Description
  • BUILT TO LAST: When building a solid, reliable teapot, stainless steel is the only choice. Made of the durable metal, it can easily handle daily cups of delicious tea without showing any wear and tear for years.
  • STUNNING SURFACE: The hand polished and mirror-like surface will make the stainless steel surface completely swoon-worthy. It’ll look good with any kitchen decor, from retro to modern, and everything in between.
  • SWAPPABLE HANDLES: Each teapot comes equipped with three different silicon handles that can be changed out to suit your mood. (They’re also heat-resistant and keep your hands completely safe while pouring your tea or moving your hot teapot.)
  • DESIGNED WITH YOU IN MIND: Not only does the heavy stainless steel deliver reliability and strength, but the streamlined design adds a touch of timeless sophistication to any countertop.
  • THE RIGHT FIT FOR FAMILIES: When you choose the 500ml teapot, you’re giving your whole family the gift of a great cup of tea. For the two of you, this stainless steel teapot is perfect for steeping and sipping.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

In Love With My Teapot #Redbird Glass Teapot #AmericanGongfu . . . . .

I’m in love, you guys.

With a teapot. (Okay, also my fiancé. But we’re not talking about him today.)

Let me give you a little background on how I usually brew my tea. Wayyy back in the day when I began to understand that loose tea is generally preferable to pre-bagged (though I’m no purist– especially in a pinch!), I started brewing my loose tea by filling my own bags, or using a mesh tea ball infuser. This went on for a while, but really, I wasn’t getting much more out of my cuppa than from my already-bagged teas. I’d occasionally brew in a teapot, but usually only if I was making a brew for my aforementioned dude and I to drink together, as my teapot made more than I could feasibly drink on my own. Fast forward to the gravity steeper days– better, and oooh, so pretty whilst brewing– but my gravity steeper is plastic, and I generally try to shy away from hot things + plastic. Strike two.

Enter: this pretty little contraption. All glass + stainless steel? Check! (My hippie heart is super happy about this one.) Cute, vintage appeal with its swoopy, rounded base and little bubble-topped lid? Check. The perfect size to brew two small cups (hello, perfect for tea-time-with-fiancé)? CHECK. Alternatively– the perfect size to brew one giant, Mary-sized cup? CHECK AND CHECK.

More bonuses? It’s easy to clean– even my giant-handled scrub brush fits inside– and doesn’t hold the color of the tea after cleaning (which other teaware of mine has a tendency to do), and for a glass teapot, actually holds the heat of the tea well enough that if I come back for a second cup, I don’t have to reheat. Woo hoo!

“If you love it so much, Mary, why don’t you marry it?” Good question, tea-friends. I still plan to marry that dude of mine (and not this teapot, unfortunately), however– I forsee the three of us having many a happy tea-sipping years together to come. One happy, tea-loving family!


Here’s the scoop!

Leaf Type:  Teaware
Where to Buy:  American Gongfu
Description

DURABLE BOROSILICATE LAB GLASS is transparent and crystal clear; safe for use on glass-top and ceramic-top ranges and all newer electric ranges; great for viewing tea color of brewing loose tea, herbal teas and tisanes, and blooming and flower teas. It’s cute but still sturdy enough for daily use and is more heat and shatter resistant than pyrex. You can use it as a small kettle to boil water, or you can pour hot tea over ice for iced tea. Use it on the gas burner, over a flame or candle.

Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!

PRODUCT REVIEW: Floppy Latte Designs Tea Time Digital Stamps

Products:

Tea Time Digital Stamps

Designer:

Jessica Leigh Gill

Where to Buy:

Stitchy Bear Stamps

The stamps I used are available for purchase here and here

Artist’s Review:

I am creating an altered book for a friend, and for the first spread in the book, I used these two digital stamps from Floppy Latte Designs at Stitchy Bear Stamps. 

To create my spread (you can get a sneak peek of it below), I first created my collage/mixed media background using patterned paper, vintage text, gesso, Golden Acrylic Paints and Lumiere paints … and a whole lot of layers!  Then I let it dry overnight.

I printed the two images onto vellum paper, and then I colored in the images using colored pencils.  Then I tore around the edges of the images, and adhered them to my dried background.  I then chose a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, and embellished with ribbon, fabric flowers, sequins and brads.

Not the best photo, sorry - but I assure you it looks much better in person.

It was a pretty simple collage, really, but I’m really happy with the way it turned out.  The photo doesn’t reveal how sparkly the collage really is (from the Lumiere paints).  I just hope that my friend that I’m sending this book to will enjoy the book as much as I am enjoying creating it… and how much I am enjoying using these digital stamps.  They add the perfect touch to my project, don’t you think?