Blossom & Bloom: Floral Teas for Late Spring Awakening
The blossoms normally emerge first in early April—often poking up through snow. Crocus. Snowdrops. Daffodills. Plum and crabapple trees, too, might show off their first flashes of color after the long winter.
But by now, the first day of May, flowers brighten nearly all corners of our Front Range world. Trails that just weeks ago showcased little more than dead grass and brown dirt now can look kaleidoscopic. Blossoms of all kinds line the trials, dot the meadows, reach for the sun in forest glades. It’s spectacular.
Traditional tea plants, Camellia sinensis, also flower—small white or pale pink blossoms, with golden stamens and delicate aromas. But tea blossoms emerge in autumn, rather than spring. Rather than being a time for flowers, spring on tea plantations revolves around the first harvests of the season, which lead to “first-flush” teas, often the most prized of the year.
Either way, blossoms are important for tea blending. China’s many good jasmine teas hinge on farmers harvesting jasmine flowers when they unfurl in the evening and then incorporating them with tea leaves. Tea artisans add osmanthus and chrysanthemum blossoms, too, to Camellia sinensis, to craft delicious and fragrant teas. Japan’s famous cherry blossoms, called sakura? One famous style of Japanese tea adds them to a blend. Our popular Sakura Cherry Green Tea falls into the outstanding category.
In addition to the Asian classics, many herbal blends lean into flower power. We carry loads of them.
As we merge with flower season this year, let’s mark it with blossom-forward teas. The smell will enchant. And the flavor will intoxicate—without the booze!
Flower Teas: Osmanthus Oolong
Osmanthus flowers, those heady spectacles of aromatic power, are native to Asia, where people for centuries have revered them. Given their grandeur, it’s no surprised they’ve found purchase in warm climates around the world, from California to Africa and far beyond.
They figure into a famous Chinese tea, which always rests on a foundation of complex oolong. Somehow the combination of osmanthus and oolong just sings. Like peanut butter and jelly, or apple pie and vanilla ice cream, the combination leaps beyond the sum of its parts, into a thing of glory.
To make our Osmanthus Oolong, farmers harvest lightly oxidized oolong tea and then blend it with fresh osmanthus flowers. The result—a taste sensation. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, osmanthus delivers myriad health benefits, including appetite suppression, phlegm erasure and breath freshener.
Flower Teas: Spring in Paris Black Tea
We’re tossing in a curve ball here. This tea doesn’t contain any flowers. But spring? Oh yes, the flower season distilled. The key—freeze-dried strawberries. We think few flavors represent spring better than strawberries. True, at least in Colorado they’re not quite ready for harvest. But they fruit much earlier in California, and we see them in our markets. As tasty as small, local strawberries during our short season? Not nearly. But we’ll take California’s commercial, organic spring strawberries any time, and consider transforming them into a strawberry-rich dessert.
Another nod to spring in this blend is pink peppercorns, known as “baie rose” in France due to their pink—rosy—appearance. With black tea giving this tea a sturdy backbone, we think it’s a perfect elixir for May’s many seasonal splendors.
Flower Teas: Bi Tan Piao Xue Jasmine Green Tea
Most people, tea fans or not, are familiar with jasmine tea. It’s served at nearly every Chinese restaurant in the country. It come iced, too. It’s common—and good. But just as with so many things, from wine to jam, there’s the really, really good stuff, there’s the dreck, and there’s everything in between.
We’ll venture that a fair bit of the jasmine tea you’ve tasted, sorry to say, has fallen into dreck territory. And perhaps you’ve lucked into some pretty good jasmine tea along the way.
Bi Tan Piao Xue? Oh, this is the ambrosial stuff. It means “snow flakes falling upon a jade pond,” which describes both its appearance—tiny, silver-lined tea buds mixed with tender jasmine blossoms—and the transportive experience of drinking this truly special elixir. The green tea comes from Mountain Meng, one of the most ancient tea mountains in China. The jasmine flowers grow there, too. Tea artisans blend leaves and blossoms for at least a week, at night. The final tea shines. It’s our highest quality jasmine green tea.
Looking to celebrate flowers this May? Here’s a special way to do it! Perfect, too, for Mother’s Day!
