Fujian Tea

Backlogging from SF. I hardly steeped this tea at all, and I enjoyed the light floral flavor. I steeped it many times in my hotel room with the teeny tiny coffee cups.

For $2.99 at the local Hmong grocery store (and in a lovely blue cylindrical tin no less), I figured, like many who’ve commented, that if I hated this tea it wouldn’t be much of a loss. After one cup, the verdict is: no hate whatsoever, but no special love. To me this is not as sweet or smooth a jasmine flavor as others I have had, even other jasmine greens. The scent in the leaf is mildly artificial-smelling to me. It improves when brewed, but not to the really intoxicating level of, say, Samovar’s Silver Needle Jasmine. (But then…not much rises to that level.) This brews up medium reddish-brown, with tea dust in the bottom. The bitterness isn’t bad at first (I was really careful to brew for no more than two minutes), but does get worse as you get to the bottom of the mug, as others have noticed. (The fault of the small amount of tea dust? I dunno.) The jasmine doesn’t taste artificial in the brewed tea—sigh of relief—but the green tea base is not particularly good or bad, just a basic Chinese green tea base. I personally like Chinese greens in general, so I’m glad I gave this a try, and will drink more of it. And of course I’ll keep the gorgeous tin it came in, for future teas! But probably will not buy this again. The world is too full of better-quality jasmine teas than this one!

Three steepings at 175F for 3 minutes each. I have bought this before and just thrown it in hot water (how hot? I didn’t know) for about 2 to 8 minutes (without paying attention) and generally enjoyed it and the variable results. The first time I bought it was at the counter of a chinese restaurant. How inexpensive!

I appreciate it more after taking care with temperature and time over the last few days. Today I took the time to steep it three times and enjoy each cup. This is the first time I have tried re-steeping green tea leaves. Fun!

1st: Moderate jasmine and slightly bitter aroma, golden color. The flavors I get, in order, are bitter, jasmine, then green. Slightly astringent. There is a sweet aftertaste. The cup is more bitter at the bottom.

2nd: Jasmine aroma fainter, but still there. I get a green taste first, then a slightly bitter taste, then a faint jasmine taste. More enjoyable than the first cup. Less astringent. Sweet aftertaste is still there.

3rd: Jasmine aroma comparable with the 2nd steeping. The color is a redder gold. The green, jasmine, and bitter tastes are lighter and well balanced. Sweet, slightly bitter aftertaste. The bottom of the cup tastes much like the top.

I think I like the second steeping significantly more than the 1st or 3rd. I think the leaves “ran out of gas” for the 3rd, but the 3rd was still pleasant.

I think I will likely keep a tin of this in the cupboard.

I just moved to San Francisco, and in the neighborhood I live in, this stuff is everywhere! Everywhere, as in any store with goods from South East Asia. This has been a really refreshing add.

For the price, it’s worth it. I use it as a nice relaxer at the end of the day if I don’t want to have to put too much care into a perfect cup. A little box of this kept me alive when I went home to Ohio for three months, where, “Isn’t that supposed to be in a bag?” would be easy to hear.

Not the highest quality, sure. It’s got a good realistic jasmine aroma. I’ve steeped it a number of different ways, and I enjoy about 2-2.5 or 3 minutes at 175 the best. Don’t listen to the package. I don’t know what they’re talking about. Flowery aroma, slightly earthy taste, smooth if steeped shorter. A satisfying tea.

I’ve been drinking this tea for the past 20 or so years, and this is my go to Jasmine green tea for after dinner desserts. Beware of over-steeping because it can easily get bitter. The actual tea leaves are more fragmented than higher quality leaves (ie Samovar), but if you brew it properly, the taste is actually almost on par. For the price, such a great value tea.

How could I forget this was in my cupboard? Once again, I’m reminded how delicately calming and magical this tea is.

Make sure you don’t leave it to steep too long and that the water is not boiling for best results. Treat this tea right and it will treat you right.

The most basic green tea at the Asian Market— only a few dollars for a huge box— but decent. Never bitter, blends well with other teas, has a real green-tea taste without being grassy or overly heavy, and lends itself well to being left in the teapot without getting bitter. A good every-day tea, for when you want to drink lots and don’t want to pay lots.

Got a sample of this from Jillian (thank you so much!) and gave it a whirl this morning. I thought it was a fairly average jasmine; no outstanding notes, no detracting characteristics. Hubby thought it was pretty good. Not one I’ll actively seek out, but not a bad tea at all.

Mixed this one with Boston Tea Co’s Dragonwell.

Go away, flu germsn!

Added some ginger for a bit of a kick.

Typical, run-of-the-mill jasmine green tea.

I bought this tin box for roughly $6.5 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I’ve prepared it four times so far, but I can’t get it to taste as good as other jasmine teas I tried. I keep getting the impression that I add the water while it’s too hot, or that I over-steep it, even though I never let it infuse past 3 minutes.

The smell is lovely, but the taste doesn’t (fully) catch up. It’s not bad but I wouldn’t call it stellar.

I was busy when we made this so I kinda forgot about it while it was sitting right next to my laptop :/. I think that probably affected the taste, but I’ll try to be as objective as possible.

I get a nice, fresh, floral aroma from the cup. I can’t say it’s specifically jasmine, but seems fresh enough. Unfortunately, I also get a ton of bitter green tea smell too. I think, largely, that’s a result of me letting it sit so long before drinking it, but I also think to some extent it as to do with the tea. It’s just too bitter and not flavorful enough to compensate for the bitterness. The instructions say boiling water for 7 mins which seems like a lot for green tea , so I think it could just be a lower quality tea. It was also pretty cheap :)

I’m going to have to give this one another shot sometime…just don’t know when.

Just picked this up at a local oriental market. It was pretty much all they had for loose-leaf, and only $2.25 to boot (so how am I not going to buy this?) They recommend 3g/cup, boiling water (for green tea?), for 5minutes. In reality, I think I used 4g/10-12oz boiling water.

I really think I’ve burnt myself out on green tea for quite a while, but this one smells less like grass clippings and much more like…well…jasmine. Refreshing. It reminds me of Chinese restaurants and old-lady floral perfume both at once.

Hm. Not bad. Although there’s a slight bitterness and astringency (my mouth feels a little dry with each sip), the sensation isn’t overwhelming. It’s towards the end of the sip and only on the middle of my tounge, just before the swallow. There’s a little greeny-sweet in there too. My mouth is full of jasmine if I breathe through my nose. Neat. Next time I think I’ll play with the temp. …or maybe the amt of leaf. This is getting more bitter the closer I get to the bottom of my cup. :/

I pick this up when ever Im in Chinatown, and today I threw in some rosemary and thyme cause Im sick with a head-chest cold

tastes just like restaurant tea (they probably do actually use this since it’s so cheap). drinking a nice mugful while i try and finish hw.

had to add more tea because it wasn’t strong enough.

Now this my friends, is good jasmine tea! It’s lightly fragranced and not artificial smelling or tasting, so you don’t feel like you’re drowning in a vat of perfume. The base is nice, a little bit coarser than the A & D version, but it still goes down quite smoothly.

I like that the jasmine is subtle enough that I don’t think that I’m drinking perfume when I take a sip. The green tea base isn’t so hot though as it IS a bit on the astringent side, like I though before and it has a sort of grassy flavour to it.