Premium Jasmine Dragon Pearls Green Tea

I really said most I can in my first review of this tea, but I want to repeat one thing in particular.

This is still the most perfectly jasmine-scented tea I’ve tasted. I have come across so many that are just over-scented and over-flavored (in some cases), and it has historically put me off jasmine teas.

Thanks to TeaVivre for proving to me that jasmine teas can be done right to suit my own palate, which seems more sensitive to flavorings and scentings.

Several steeps in, and this tea is getting much more floral with that lingering bite to it that heavily floral teas always seem to have.

Still, a green jasmine tea that can produce several steeps is, in and of itself, impressive.

SIPDOWN! I got up at 5 am to keep an eye on the new hen. When they are adjusting the pecking order, sometimes the newcomer or the smallest hen will get beaten up, but they have behaved themselves wonderfully. They didn’t even get up until 6 am today!

Another tasting note inspired me to make a pot of this, sit outside, and watch the chickens for a while. The wind is blowing and we are supposed to have a thunderstorm, so it is quite overcast and cloudy with sudden piercing beams of sunlight warming your arms and face. The dogwood trees are sprinkling us with petals and stamens and pistils as the wind ruffles through the branches.

I made three steeps so this is a little lighter than I usually drink it, though I did use extra pearls to finish them off cleanly. No fear. The tin is already refilled with Teavivire’s Superfine Downy Jasmine Dragon Pearls. My next purchase from them will be their Jasmine Silver Needle.

These are the jasmine teas I drink when I want to enjoy an excellent jasmine tea by itself. If I am having food, I drink Silver Jasmine Green instead of pearls.

Backlogging from last night: We skipped a week doing our Chinese buffet take out so I was especially ready for it last night. For less than twenty bucks we got six meals, and enjoyed really good tea with it instead of dining in and having…water, because I am NOT taking their bagged black Lipton! LOL!

This was my tea of choice. This is the most soothing, delicious, smooth green tea with the most beautiful jasmine aroma. I was getting a little anxious that I might use up my favorite jasmines, but at last one of my orders has finally arrived in New York, so I could prepare a pot of this without fear of running out too soon. The one I ordered first is still showing as being in Hangzhou. Hmph.

Hubby used to drink just sweet iced tea, then started loving hot Tetley with milk and sugar and sugar and sugar, LOL! I watched him last night down a cup of this and reach for the pot and pour another. He has found a number of greens that he really enjoys and I am soooo glad! This is kne he really likes. He still doesn’t know the names of the ones he likes. I just have to keep track!

I got so excited about the guests liking the tea that I asked youngest to make one more pot! This is a no fail tea as far as I am concerned. It is so good that everyone I have served it to has loved it.

Tonight was no different. One guest had tried it here cancel before and wanted more. The man whose wife is Japanese said it was very good, and he said he doesn’t praise much tea so if he says a tea is good, it is a big deal.

I had two cups. I had made several teas, all decaf, and here I go drinking two cups of caffeinated tea before bed!!! Ah well, Teavivre says on their website that this one is low in caffeine. I sure hope so.

Yesterday I did a wee bit of shoveling-up some grass that had overgrown one of my beds outside while it was over 100 degrees for about a month and I couldn’t take the heat to work in the yard. Last night, my back told me it wasn’t very happy with me. Today when I turned to take the kettle off the burner for geometry tea, my back said NO! And I screamed! Lots of time on the heating pad, lots of ibuprofen.

There is a good part – a silver lining to this cloud. We have always had a tight budget because we made the choice for me to stay home with the kids. My income is tiny. Whisper “tiny” to see how small it is! :) For many years we literally only ate at a restaurant twice a year…our anniversary and my birthday. But last month, we started a little tradition of just hubby and me going to the Chinese buffet. The food was plentiful and good, but they only have cheap black tea, so I just made green tea when we got home and we drank it together. (The kids are old enough to stay home alone and don’t Like Chinese food.)

Tonight I told hubby that I just didn’t think I could go. My back is tight and not hurting quite as much, but sometimes when I stand, I scream. I didn’t really want to do that in a big restaurant. Hubby said he would go and get take out. They weigh the boxes. And guess what? It was cheaper to bring it home than to eat there plus you save the tip money AND I made two pots of this great jasmine tea to enjoy WHILE we ate, not just after! I had been worried about whether our budget would allow us to continue our Chinese food night tradition, but this is very do-able! Plus we have leftovers for tomorrow! Hooray!

I had my tea buying ban in effect, but then youngest needed Lapsang so she can do school, and I NEEDED to hit the free shipping mark, so I ordered some of the newer Extra Fine Downy Jasmine Pearls. :) They are on the way.

Oh, and here is today’s geometry doodle. Maybe I should tell her to be a drama major! :D
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24998856@N06/7851952248/

Finally, after twenty minutes of waiting for this to load, I can review my last tea of the day. Last night I saved my pearls. Tonight I added a teaspoon of new pearls since I had made it on the light side last time. I unashamedly drank the whole pot by myself. This is my quiet tea, my happy place tea, my meditative tea. Always, always must have on hand. I will be taking some to a new “tea friend” to try when I get my stitches out at Duke next week, because he has been paying $6 an ounce for the Teavana ones, while these are less than $4 an ounce. When you drink a lot of it, that is a significant savings if the quality is as good, and I think these are better.

Continuing along the vein of yesterday…my neighbor has a broken foot that needed surgery. We are helping him with this and that. Yesterday I asked if he drinks tea, and he said he drinks some grocery store bagged greens for health. bwahahahahaha! A new victim!

Since he loved the Silky Green yesterday, I took this one today. He LOVED it. I mean, he LOVED it. He kept exclaiming over the aroma, and how sweet it tasted. Both days, he couldn’t get over the fact that I had added nothing at all to the tea. The jasmine really does lend a sweetness to this already smooth green base. He is already talking about ordering some loose leaf teas next time I place an order, and wants to try puerh and a few others over the next few days.

New tea converts are SOOOOO EXCITING!!!!

I just received my refill of this one. I said I didn’t want to ever be without it and I meant it! My oldest daughter and I shared a pot this morning, she who drinks tea because it is good for her and not because she likes it. She picked up her cup as we talked, took a sip, interrupted herself saying, “Oo, that’s good!” and kept talking. Yep. It really is.

Sweet daughter had come by to bring me a big bag of Lindt truffles to make my face feel better! :)
We had a mocha one with our tea and it was yummy!

Asian buffet takeout with hubby, two steeps of green tea = Friday night. This is one of my all time favorite teas and I hope to have something I love this much on shelf always. Yum!

Throughout the day today the memory of the taste of this tea haunted me. As I cleaned the living room getting ready for tea party I could just taste it. I really hadn’t planned to make this one but I started craving it. Why fight it?

This is absolutely heavenly. The green base is so good. I have had other dragon pearl jasmines that had a artsy or astringent base. This one is excellent and sweet on the tongue. The jasmine is a soothing, lovely addition that weaves a cocoon of weave around me. There is no perfume-y or soapy taste, just sweet, glorious jasmine and good green tea.

It is pretty economical, too. I used one tsp. of pearls and resteeped them and combined the steeps in a larger pot to serve it today.

A friend invited me over for brunch and conversation today. I asked if I couldn’t bring anything and she said no, then changed her mind and told me maybe I could bring some tea since she had heard a lot about it. I chose this and Genteel Lady and thought we could either choose just one or try both.

When I was taking the teas out I asked if she drinks green tea and she said no. She didn’t like green tea. We tried Genteel Lady first but she kept looking at the Jasmine tin. Then she decided to just sniff it. Then she decided perhaps she could just try it.

She could not get her face out of the cup! Sniffing and sipping, over and over. Once again, I find myself placing an order with Teavivre from someone who has fallen in love with their tea! And a green, at that! Hooray! The tea-vangelist strikes again! :D

This is one of my “if you could only have ten teas” cupboard staples. Heck, it is in the top five! This was the third tea of tea party and at the first sip I sighed, my shoulders relaxed, and too tight muscles began to melt.

I. Love. This. Tea.

It has been a stressful week. I am dealing with the public at early voting, still teaching my music students, and my mother-in-law had trigeminal neuropathy seizures again late Tuesday night and we rushed over to help, ending up calling an ambulance and sitting in the emergency room until all hours and not getting her home again for two days. Tonight I was considering trying some Kava tea (a free sample that came from Yogi but looks scary so I will probably never drink it) or some Get Some Zzz’s. Then I realized I just wanted to relax, and all that takes is a really good jasmine tea…just like this.

I was placing a Harney order for someone else and thought about ordering their jasmine pearls a.) just for ha-ha’s, b.) for comparison, and c.) because shipping was already covered, but when I saw the price I knew Teavivre was going to continue to be my source for Dragon Pearl Jasmine. Delicious, soothing, comforting, and very affordable. Maybe someday I will try another, but this one really massages the soul and is a great price.

I really intended to resteep my Tropical Green tea by Harney and Sons, but when I ran some things out to the recycling can I was hit by the scent of jasmine. Sure enough, the vines have just started blooming enough for its perfume to envelope me on a quick jaunt out the back door. I knew I still had leaves that had only been steeped two or three times, and the scent of the vine made me want more! Plus, I really shouldn’t keep these leaves much longer! I usually only keep them for about 24 hours resteeping for as long as they will handle it and these have hit that deadline. So jasmine it is, and the Tropical Green will be for tomorrow. When I take it to my neighbor I will use fresh leaves, not a resteep.

In my quest for a decluttered tea shelf of only the very favorite teas, this is another that makes the cut.

After getting so utterly wrecked and sore last night from cooking and cleaning, I feel great today. I also have been very lazy and have done little.

I have just finished the fifth steep of one teaspoon of these little pearls, and I must say they have added an elegance and enjoyment to this day as few things can.

The jasmine flavor is still present though fading, and the green base is showing its pedigree. It reminds me a great deal of Huang Shan Mao Feng. This is exquisite, and is one of my panic teas. I panic if it starts to get low and I place an order!

I haven’t had this one in a few weeks, and last night’s trial of Mighty Leaf’s Jasmine tea in bags made me question whether this was really as good as I was remembering.

It is. Ordering my third pouch now.

This smelled so heavenly last night that my eyes rolled back in my head in ecstasy. I had to resteep those pearls this morning. I am usually a stay at home homeschooling mom who teaches music lessons at home, but right now I am working for three weeks for the Board of Elections, as I always do when there is an election. I made my resteep, put it in my JoeMo XL and had loveliness to sip as we began early voting. The scent of this tea is so sweet and soothing I just feel tension ebb away when I inhale and sip. This one HAS to stay on hand. Since it resteeps so well, it is well worth the modest amount they charge for it. I think the price is excellent for a tea of this high quality.

Yesterday’s tea to take to work. I have decided that I don’t want to take a really special tea like this anymore unless I can pour it in a cup. Drinking it from a closed top container makes you lose the enjoyment of sniffing the aroma. This was great, though….too good to take to work on a busy day when you can’t appreciate ow excellent it is.

I woke up this morning to find the tea table decorated with bouquets for my daughters and me, new tiny teacups and saucers, and a new glass teapot! EEEEE!

http://purepuer.com/puer_tea/do/product/taiwan%20glass/Green%20Handle%20Glass%20Teapot

Yes, I have a thoughtful, romantic hubby. Yes, I do appreciate him! Yes, I try to be as good to him as he is to us!

I KNEW this tea was going to taste even better in a pretty glass pot, and it does! Actually, it tastes the same, but I love being able to watch the pearls open up. I really have to, HAVE TO, keep this tea on hand. My first experience with jasmine from another company was not good at all. In fact, I am surprised I ever bothered to try another, but I am glad I did.

This jasmine is just right for me and the base is incredibly smooth and silky. It resteeps nicely, too.
I am so glad I put this in my first Teavivre order.

I am so glad that I have this on order and it is on its way. I still have enough of my sample to make it one or two more times, but I do NOT want to run out!

I made this in glass for the first time because I wanted to watch the pretty pearls open up. The container was very large, though, and I think I underestimated how much water I was pouring in. The tea looked very pale, but it was still delicious. I resteeped right away with a lot less water and combined the two steeps. I am getting the glass teapot from purepuer.com especially for this tea and Teavivre’s flowering teas.

This has been a perfect tea for today. It is sunny and about seventy degrees outside, the windows are open, and the girls and I have a tea tray in the middle of the bed on my big fluffy down comforter so we can sit in the cross breeze to do our afternoon reading and have tea and cookies. Feeling very blessed.

We drank this on the heels of Chun Mei tonight, and as much as I liked the Chun Mei, I must say this tea blew me out of the water. The sour Chun Mei with its sweet aftertaste only intensified the sweetness of this jasmine beauty.

We made this one gong fu style and got about five steeps out of it before running out of hot water. We were not yet out of flavor though, so the leaves have been saved for another pot tomorrow. This one has to stay on my shelf, not matter how ruthlessly I try to cut my tea inventory. Smooth, sweet, silky, this is a great tea.

Oh yes! I loved clicking Add to Cupboard for this one!

Three steeps shared with oldest daughter today. Magnificent! The base is so smooth, the jasmine so soothing, and even on the third steep it still had lots of color and body. We were making 16 ounce pots, not using the gong fu set, so I feel pretty good about the amount of tea we coaxed out of those pearls.

Hubby drank tea with me again last night! I can not convey how soothing I find a good jasmine to be, and this is one of the best I have had. We made about six steeps from two teaspoons of pearls in an eight ounce glass pot. The jasmine does start to fade a bit after several steeps, but it is still there, and the green tea base was still going strong!

On Valentine’s evening, I asked hubby to join me for Teavivre’s Two Dragons and A Pearl flowering tea since it was a special occasion and he had given me a glass pot. I was very surprised last night at about bedtime when he asked if we were going to drink tea again! He is a Tetley kind of guy and I knew this was a sacrifice of LoVe! :)

I chose this tea because it is one of the main reasons I wanted a glass pot. I love watching the pearls turn into ittle pinwheels as they open up.

This has such a wonderful, natural jasmine flavor. It sweetens the tea without dominating it completely. The steeped tea is yellow, and remained about the same color through five steeps. Each was also delicious. The green tea base is mild and smooth with no bitterness or bite.

I am hoping that the “tea together before bedtime” thing is going to become a ritual! :) Or at least a frequent occurrence.

A review of Organic Green Tea by Midori with a few pellets Jasmine “Dragon Pearls” by Teavivre

Company: Midori Trading, Inc. / teavivre
Tea Name: Organic Green Tea
Tea Type/Varietal: Green
Region: China
Steeping Vessel/Amt. Leaf: cup/ tea bag + 2 pellets of the Jasmine Dragon pearls
Liquor Color: light green
Leaf Characteristics: This tea seems so very light that I thought to perhaps try this tea with some of the Jasmine Dragon Pearls to possibly liven the tea up, not that it need be, it is fine as is. Just curious.

1. Steepings

1st Steeping:
Water temperature: 180 Fahrenheit
Time: 2 minutes

I take one tea bag of the organic green tea and two small pellets of the Jasmine Dragon Pearls and place them in my cup and pour in the boiled water and leave to steep with saucer lid as cover for few minutes.

I remove the saucer to find that the tea buds has bloom/plumpness fully and the tea is a milder green color and yes the bouquet permeating the air is Jasmine and smelling strongly. I take a sip and another sip and the tea is dry in taste at first when swallowed but the smell I cannot get past.

So I failed to liven up this organic green tea by introducing and mixing it with the jasmine dragon pearls as once again the scent of the jasmine over powers any enjoyment there could have been of this tea’s mixture.

I simply do not like Jasmine tea. It is not good.

This is the very last of my green jasmine pearls. I am probably going to drink this for the rest of tonight because I want to make sure that my pearls unfurl all the way. Especially since it is the very last of my packet that Teavivre sent to me. I have to admit, if they didn’t send it to me, I probably would have never tried a jasmine tea.

I put in more pearls than I usually do when drinking this. I have noticed that the recommended tea scoops normally fill up the bottom of my press, so I estimated the amount. I also steeped it shorter. The result is that the tea is lighter in color than I remembered, but so much sweeter! I learned how to steep by tea better over this last year.

I needed this lovely and slightly sweet tea. It just makes me feel better when I drink pretty tea out of a pretty mug. This tea is pretty because of the jasmine scent. I only used two teaspoons this time and I think I like it better. The taste is more delicate and lovely.

I might be sipping this tea all night long. I’ve been having a difficult time dealing with the thought that I went to college and I’m going to have to settle with a minimum wage job for a while before I find myself a “real job”. But extra income will be nice and my brother will be going to college himself in two weeks. Yay for him!

I didn’t get to have my re-steeps of this last night, so I am having one now. Good thing it is even good cold because it cooled off in my mug while I was multi-tasking.

I wanted something warm and comforting that I could sip on since the day has turned cold and rainy. I knew I still had one more good steep in these leaves, so I made myself a cup of this. My brother likes the smell of jasmine and I am tempted to see if the jasmine plant can grow well where I live. I love the smell.

I am convinced that Jasmine is a tea that you grow to love. It is just what I need right now. Delicate and floral. Smells so delicious. I want to bury my nose in the tea and just inhale. I think I grew to be a jasmine tea lover. This is delicious.

A cup of this and then a shower before I make my second steep so I can wind down with it as well. It will me a lovely and relaxing night.

Backlog #7: I am liking this more the more times I drink it. I can see how it can be an everyday cup of tea that goes well with meals. The flavor isn’t heavy enough to interfere with any food flavors, but it is enough to make it pleasant. The green tea also dries out my mouth just a little bit between bites so that my palate doesn’t get overwhelmed by flavors. This would go fantastic with sushi!