Heirloom Tea Flowers

[liralen]

Bought: From Upton Tea via their alerts on tisanes.

Brewed: According to the directions on the packaging, I even pulled out my thermometer, and brewed nearly 2 Tbs of flowers (about a dozen all together) in about 16 ounces of water at 165 degrees F. for 7 minutes.

Leaf Qualities: There are opened, white flowers with pistals and a few buds and a bit of stem below the flowers. They're a lovely honey gold color. Smelled dry, just the faintest whiff of camellias (surprise! not...). When brewed the spent flowers smelled very strongly of camellias. Yum.

The brew is that same honey gold in color, I was leery of the long brewing time, but it worked pretty well. This really tastes of mild butter, honey and grain with just the merest hint of the tannins that a tea would have. I didn't get a bit of citrus. The scent of the liquor is faintly floral as well, the sweetness of camellias, and it's strongest in the finish. Reminds me of chrysanthemum tea, as it has that sweetness to it, but the character of it is as distinctly different as the scents are, which makes sense given how much taste is actually scent.

I really, really like it. And if it really is as low in caffeine as the ad implies, I may be able to drink it in the evening. As I've gotten older I seem to sleep worse if I have any stimulants during the day, so I have to watch the caffeine in the afternoon and evening, a single cup of tea at 4pm can keep me up until midnight. I'll probably follow up later on how I slept as this is pretty late for me to be drinking tea, usually, but the shipment came today and I had to try it.

Don't expect a 'normal' tea level of flavor. If you know and like chrysanthemum, you'll know about the level of flavor this particular floral tisane will give you. It is not comparable to the strong flavors and characteristics of a regular tea. Even a white tea is likely stronger than this, but it is almost comparable to a great white tea.

Rating: 10 of 10 for a tisane, possibly 8 of 10 on the merits of a tea.

Added 8/30/2005: Dang... stayed awake until nearly midnight. Don't know if it's actually the tea or other things on the brain, but it might not be as low in caffeine as I'd hoped.