Dragon Pearls

Ah, this tea is so wonderful. I know I love it, but when I’ve gone a while without drinking it I sometimes second-guess my love. One must understand how terribly I thought I hated jasmine for years of my tea-drinking life. It smelled like perfume and tasted like soap, and I could not figure out why it continued to be put in tea. This is why!

Since encountering higher-quality tea, I have found a few jasmines I like. But this one takes the cake. It’s light and delicate but sweet and indulgent. It makes me feel like I am sitting in a park surrounded by spring blossoms and a light breeze. That sounds over-the-top girly, but even the boyfriend enjoyed this last night. I selected it to accompany our bowl of blackberries and evening of watching the Tudors. It was a nice way to unwind after what feels like an altogether unreasonable amount of schoolwork, and the tea was nice with the berries.

I’m also pretty shocked at how economical this tea is, for how expensive it seems. I used 5 or 6 pearls per 12 oz of water. I didn’t have time to steep them again, but I’m pretty sure the pearls would be lovely for another infusion or two. They are perfect to grab when you realize you have forgotten to pack tea and will be travelling, as you don’t even need a strainer! I love that DT sent this as a prize for the Twitter contest. In fact, it’s slow at work and I think I’m going to go make some more now!

Maybe my tastes have changed, but when I made a cup of this today I was very disappointed. All I could taste was jasmine! The green tea was mild, uninteresting and dull. I realize that this is jasmine green tea, but the words GREEN TEA are also there. So I guess if you are crazy about jasmine this isn’t such a bad tea. But maybe you should just brew a cup of jasmine by itself.

I don’t like this tea anymore, but the good news is that I have friends with less discerning paletes that will enjoy some free Dragon Pearls. ;)

200ml glass teapot, 1 1/2 generous teaspoons, 2 steeps

it always surprises me how very fragrant this tea is my whole cubicle smelled like jasmine, very relaxing…

backloging

I really like the first cup of this tea. It is lightly floral and aromatic. The salesperson at David’s told me that different flavour profiles would emerge on each steeping, and I thought at the time ‘Great!’ What I didn’t count on was that I wouldn’t to drink anymore of it beyond 2 cups. One or two cups is enough for me. Once I get to the third cup, the jasmine becomes too much, and it tastes like paste on my tongue.

This tea becomes bitter if steeped too long, which happened to me on the second steeping.

I had this last weekend at a friend’s home. I have to say I was quite disappointed considering how much I love the Silk Road Dragon Tears. The leaves didn’t appear to be as long and whole as in the Silk Road pearls.

More importantly, though, I didn’t find it very jasmine-y and it was quite bitter. However, I am guessing it was steeped with boiling water, and it was definitely over-steeped. I will refrain from rating it until I try it properly steeped.

All Jasmine tea taste the same to me. I had a piping hot tea in the Davids NYC store. It was raining out. I sat on the couch and thought about life. Not a bad cup of tea, just pretty ordinary. Maybe next time I’ll try something a bit more exciting.

This is my favorite green tea, hands down! I love that you get a little show while you wait for the tea to steep as the pearls unroll and get cosy at the bottom of your mug. And as the leaves are so long you really don’t need a filter of any kind, they just sink to the bottom. This does, however lead to some very strong tea by the time you get to the bottom of the cup, but I just use fewer pearls per cup and give it more time to steep.

I enjoyed smelling this tea as much as I enjoyed drinking it. I havent tried tons of green tea but of the 5 kinds I have tried so far this one is the best. I was afraid from some of the other reviews that this would be “seaweedy” or “fishy” because I really hate that taste/smell in tea. Instead I enjoyed a mild but very pleasant tasting green tea and did I mention how much I loved the jasmine scent? its subtle, not overbearing in any way and taking deep breaths of it I felt so at ease and relaxed drinking it. Aromatherapy in a cup. I know already that this will become a staple for me. I love Pukka’s “relax” to unwind at night but I might start with this one and end with a cup of the stronger tasting Pukka as my evening unwinding ritual. I am so glad I discovered this tea..it’s stress therapy and like laying on a cozy, freshly washed blanket in a meadow in Spring in the middle of this endless storm of my life. The little things in life really do make it all worthwhile. This is one of those things for me.

So I decided to crack these guys open today. It was my first tea at school for the new year. While it tastes good, I prefer the Camellia Sinensis pearls way better. These gewt bitter if steeped too long. Still a pretty good dragon pearl. I would classify the pearls as Camellia Sinensis ( as #1), Teopia/Teavana as #2 and DT as my third choice.

On the suggestion of David’s Tea on twitter, I mixed this with some peppermint tea. Delicious. Really nice – just let the pearls and peppermint sink to the bottom of the cup. I’ll be adding some more pearls next time – four isn’t enough, I think, for my teacup.