Origin: Lin’an, Zhejiang, China
Ingredients: Organic Dehydrated Camellia
Harvest time: Oct 15, 2012
Taste: Gentle taste, soft and smooth, with the aftertaste of dry persimmon
Brew: 10 to 15 pieces for one brew
Health Benefits: Camellia helps to control the excitement of nerves in a normal limit, improve your sleeping quality, and anti-ages. Also camellia can help to clean wastes in intestines and stomach, loss weight, reduce blood pressure, protect liver and kidney, clear heat and help you keeping fit. It’s an optimistic option for middle ages and elders.
Sample provided by TeaVivre for review.
My review:
Camellia?? What is camellia? I requested this one from TeaVivre because I was curious. In the pictures it kind of looks like chamomile. It is listed on TeaVivre’s website as an herbal tea. I’ve not seen this on other tea sites or even heard of it before. So I did some tea research (or tea-search, a word coined by one Steepster reviewer). It turns out Camellia is the flower of the tea plant camellia sinensis. The same plant all true teas come from. According to my research, most tea trees on a plantation do not flower because the leaves are plucked, so no flowers can grow.
Since it is from the tea plant, is it tea or is it a tisane? What do you think?
More importantly, what does it taste like, right?
I quickly looked at the picture on the website before opening the sample and thought what came out of the bag would be hard like nuts. Nope. It is really soft and fluffy. I steeped with below boiling water for maybe three minutes per instructions.
The resulting brew is nearly clear. It has a little bit of honey color but not much. Looking at it, I’m wondering should I have used boiling water? TeaVivre has always been spot on with their directions. I also wonder will this have any flavor? Never fear of course it does.
The website says it has a dry persimmon aftertaste. I was expecting it to be closer to chamomile. To me personally, it does not taste anything like the persimmons we grow in our yard. Maybe Chinese persimmons are completely different. This definitely does not taste like chamomile.
The taste is something very similar to white tea. It is subtle but deep. There are light melon and cucumber notes. This is a very light caffeine free sip. Perfect for relaxing in the evening. It is lightly sweet.
I saved the petals overnight. The second cup is darker in color. It looks like a cup of white tea. It is still very see through but with a golden tint. This has no bitterness. It still makes me think white tea. This has a cooling effect making my lungs feel more open.
I love quiet subtle teas if they have depth. I thought this cup pulled off subtle very well. If you like white tea, I think you would enjoy this one.
Visit the TeaVivre website.
I've had this (it was called "tea flowers") and enjoyed it. Yes, subtle is a good description. My little tea plant blooms occasionally - perhaps I should capture a few buds and try them fresh!
ReplyDeleteTeavivre told me this mixes great with green tea, so you wouldn't need a lot of flowers. Definitely worth trying!
DeleteThat looks just beautiful! I had no idea you could make tea from tea-flowers. I will look out for some, but not sure if UK suppliers, we all like our black tea too much over here:)
ReplyDeleteThis was new to me as well. I found camellia on a few other sites after sampling this one. I don't recall if any were UK suppliers. Teavivre's worldwide shipping is very reasonable and I have nothing but praise for them. They also have black tea although Yunnan teas are altogether different than the kick in the head your are probably use to sipping :)
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