I was excited to try this one (also part of the sampler pack from twiggles) because I really love jasmine teas, and this is a “Chung Hao” grade of jasmine and I’ve read reviews of other Chung Hao jasmines that made me want to try them. The dried leaves on this one have a strong jasmine aroma with an underlying sweetness; I’ve seen a couple of jasmine teas described recently as having honeysuckle aromas, and now I can smell it in this one too.
I was surprised at how dark this tea got after only 2.5 minutes of brewing. The liquor is a dark yellow edging toward orange, and the aroma of the brewed tea is very similar to the dried leaf, except more well developed and “fuller”. This isn’t a wimpy jasmine; the taste is strongly of floral jasmine (not very perfumey, I don’t think, but I don’t tend to get bottle of perfume flavor from florals that some people do) integrating well with the green tea. There seems to be a touch of underlying bitterness from the green tea, but given the darkness of the liquor after 2.5 minutes I think the steep time could be dropped to take care of that. I’m not quite sure how this one compares to the other jasmines I have now; I guess I’ll have to go back and try them to see how they all stack up. In any case, I think this tea would match up well with the others I’ve tried so far.
