Pao Blossom White Tea

Last tasting note of the day…I can’t take anymore. I feel like my eyeballs are floating and I’ve got quite the caffeine buzz going on causing a slight headache. I can’t remember the last time I drank so many different teas in one day and each tea is being brewed at least 2-3 times. Tea drunk perhaps?

This one intrigued me because it supposedly resembles jasmine. Mmm, jasmine. The dry leaves appear to be mostly curled dark green leaves with some white leaves mixed in. The dry smell took me a while to place. It smells like the black licorice candies you get for Halloween. That put me off a little because I don’t like licorice. The wet leaves smelled like that candy licorice, some sort of citrus note, floral notes and a vegetal note hiding in the corner.

Taste was floral, not jasmine, a lot softer than jasmine, definitely not soapy. There were hints of sweet citrus and grapes and a tingling sensation on the tip of the tongue in the aftertaste. The licorice taste was still there but it wasn’t that icky sticky sweetness in the back of the throat. I didn’t care for it but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

The one thing I really noticed about this tea is that it is really calming. I’ve been drinking so much tea that the caffeine is really making me twitchy and giving me a headache. This tea is calming me down even though I’m still very alert and my headache has calmed down to barely noticeable. A nice bonus.

I would rate this tea a bit higher, but that candy licorice is slightly off-putting to me. It’s the only thing I have bad to say about this tea. Other than that it is wonderful.

Another tea in my Shang sampler, I did not really know what to expect from a Pao Blossom but am open to new things. :)

I felt the leaf, when dry, smelled very much like a grapefruit or some kind of citrus fruits but that seemed to be where the comparison ended. I do understand why folks may think this is like a jasmine tea since it has a very floral element but it seems less strong than a jasmine in my opinion. I am, however wishing for a tad less flowers…

I steeped my little 3g sample in the gaiwan and have enjoyed drinking this very much. I tried to keep the temperature of my water very low as well, around 170 – 180 F. This seems to be so much a very relaxing and meditative tea and has a very delicate flavor. I really just want to get more so I can keep experimenting with it, so that fact alone will give it a fairly high rating in my book… It resteeps very well without any loss of flavor but it is a very delicate creature and I’m trying to treat it as such.

Green and white teas are teas that belong to spring and summer. I just don’t feel like drinking them much during the colder months of the year. Funnily enough, the reverse is not true for blacks and similar. I can drink those all year around. Anyway, it’s summerly outside and I felt like something sweet and refreshing, but also tea.

Therefore we turn towards these summer-teas, and I just happen to have a sample of this one kicking about in the Bits’n’Bops Basket. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve only ever had good experiences with the samples I’ve had the good fortune to try from this company. Seeing that the lowest amount of points given to this one so far is 83, I suspect I’m in for yet another one of those success-stories.

In spite of the fact that I’m not usually a very big fan of flower scented teas. Flowers so easily take on a soapy quality for me, a very basic and dusty sort of flavour which I don’t find particularly pleasant. Like getting shampoo in one’s mouth while showering. Especially jasmine has a tendency to do this for me.

I’ve never had anything with pao blossoms before, and I’m a little concerned about them being compared somewhat to jasmine in the description. I don’t care much for jasmine, so I’m not sure I’d care for some sort of super-jasmine-y flower either. Mentions of grapefruit, however, calms me down a bit again.

It is indeed very aromatic, rather too much for my taste. I’m not really a flower person in anyway. They’re nice to look at and all, but I don’t much care for the scent. Not just in tea, but in real flowers as well. It becomes too heavy too easily. There are even a certain kind of potted plants which I have banned from the house on account of them being stinky (little pink/purple flowers, large, hairy, dark green leaves). I haven’t the foggiest what it’s called but the boyfriend knew which one I meant and thankfully agreed with me on that one.

So yeah. I’ve got a cup of tea on my desk and it’s positively stinking up my room. Having stood there for a few minutes, the worst of the floral odoeur has wafted off, and I have to put my nose down to the cup in order to smell it. It’s much more pleasant now! Can’t say what it smells like though. It smells like flowers. I can’t find any notes of the actual tea in the aroma. If they are there, they are concealed underneath the flowers.

The flavour is not even remotely as offensive as the smell. To my vast surprise, even with my previous good experiences of this company, I find it’s actually really nice. It’s only slightly basic and dusty floral in flavour. Very very slightly, and yes, there really is a good note of grapefruit. I love grapefruit. I eat one nearly every day. Especially the aftertaste is strong on grapefruit.

It’s hard for me to tell how much of the white tea I’m getting through the flavour. There’s definitely tea in there, but beyond that I can’t really tell. I don’t think I’m experienced enough in white teas for that.

Yet another hit from Shang tea. I’m giving it around 95 points to begin with, but I’m deducting some for the fact that I found the strong aroma so unpleasant. I believe that’s fair.

I was never a fan of scented teas until I tried this white tea from Shang. Pao Blossom is probably the best floral scent and taste that I have experienced. Shang makes this using his silver needle king grade leaves and the pao blossom is allowed to infuse into the leaves about 3-4 times over the course of the tea making process.

This Pao Blossom is one tea which doesn’t gain much (if anything) from a high tea-to-water ratio. I speak from experience. My first infusion was one minute, much too long for 3.5gm tea to 4oz water, which was a mistake. In all, I steeped it half a dozen times, with florality to spare every time. I think it has something to do with the height of the fragrance note of this flower, by which I mean it resonates at a higher frequency. Aaaah, tea, flowers, and music! To me, pao flower resembles jasmine, but is even more ethereal. It is hard to believe that this tea was scented by mingling with blossoms; I would easier believe that it was sprayed with a pure, organic essential oil from the blossoms … the fragrance is so very strong and/or powerful! I’m considering mixing the tea 50/50 with Shang’s White Peony King, to have more tea with my flowers, and to make it go farther, but first I’ll mix a small sample to see if the ratio is good. This is coming from me, who adores floral teas! The flower is truly exquisite, and I wish everyone could experience it!

Tea #3 in my white tea sampler from Shang. This time it was a white that was blended with pao blossoms. I’m not quite sure what a pao is; the only information I turned up was that it was like grapefruit. Doesn’t taste like it, though. This white had the typical requisite grape and butter lean, but with a jasmine/mint profile due to the added botanicals. The overall effect was quite pleasant.

This tea has an amazing, subtle delicacy — sort of like angelic white peony. Have never had anything quite like it. If you like scented teas, such as jasmine, this pao blossom white peony is like an ethereal version of such teas — like being transported to a higher plane. I gave some to a woman who works in my building and she said it cured her of a bunch of physical ailments!

Without question – this is my favorite tea from Shang. Not only is it delightful in scent and flavor – you actually FEEL better after drinking it. It can help lower your blood pressure! That’s just one of the many benefits of the pao blossom. I can’t describe how much I love this tea. I’ve always loved tea but this tea made me a daily drinker. Don’t over steep it! It’s a quick brew!