A Tea Addict's Journal

Lotus flower tea

September 25, 2009 · 3 Comments

I think a lot of us “serious” teaheads tend to dismiss flower infused tea as inferior and bad, and for good reason.  For the most part, these flower infused tea (along with orange peel tea, etc) are made with relatively inferior tealeaves and generally are not very good.  These days they are also often infused with artificial or “natural” flavourings and that sort of thing, further compromising their value.

However, even in the Ming dynasty, people were already doing such things, except their procedures were much more elaborate and difficult, and certainly not meant for large scale commercial production.  Consider the following for a “Lotus flower tea”:

When the sun is not yet risen, open the lotus flowers that are only halfway to full bloom, and put a small amount of fine tea into the center of the flower, and tie the flower loosely with a little raw hemp, and leave it overnight.  Next morning, pluck the flower, pour out the leaves, and use paper to wrap it and roast it dry.  Using this process again, pour the leaves back into another flower, repeat this a few times, and then finally dry it and store it for use.  The fragrance is incomparable.

Try that at home.

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3 responses so far ↓

  • Anonymous // September 26, 2009 at 10:21 am | Reply

    I’ve seen this tea around a bit, specially with Vietnamese origin. Can you recommend any particular suppliers as having the “more natural” and higher quality teas as opposed to artificially enhanced or inferior grade teas? Thanks!

  • Anonymous // September 26, 2009 at 7:03 pm | Reply

    Rats, I knew I should’ve planted lotus this year.  I do agree with you about flavorings.  Often the chemical taste really isto the forefront.  Mostly I prefer straight teas, although I am trying some blends with flavors that seem to be ok – aside from Jasmine and Earl Grey, that is.

  • jasonwitt // October 5, 2009 at 6:45 pm | Reply

    And what’s sweet about it is you can try it at home. Or at least you could back in the day. Or the Chinese could do it today though it’d be quite a costly tea if done by hand with such simplicity. –Teaternity

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