Art tea

It's not so much artificial flavors that are the issue, it's (just as was said) plastics, strings, and dyes/colorings, among other things. There are some that are pure tea crafted into an artistic shape with some minimal cotton string, they are also expensive. The one's you buy for $0.50-$1 are most likely going to involve plastic, string, dye, binder/glue/sizing, etc. I have seen bright red centers made of plastic, I have also seen bright red centers made from ungodly dyed leaf... and red dye ain't exactly the safest color especially coming from China.

I'm very wary of artistic teas, even beyond the normally bad flavor and improper steeping needed to make them "flower."

- Dominic

I have a collection from cheap to expensive. I don't see any evidence of the horror stories. If nothing else they are 99% green tea bud with some expensive string or cheap plastic ties. Everyone taste a little odd but nothing more than any other flavored tea from China. If stuff was added you would see it in the brew as particulate or discolorization or residue. Mine pop out in a minute so much for the glue theory. I don't think you can say anymore about tea blossoms than all the other fake teas from China, supposedly.

Jim

Alan wrote:

Maybe I'm just the lucky type who's had some bad experiences. I've seen blossoms, with plastic centers made to resemble a flower (one was yellow, the other was red). I've seen ones closed using something similar to sizing used on new paintbrushes. The one I mentioned with the garishly dyed center. I've also had non-artificial ones that ranged from terrible in flavor to at best an acceptable/good.

I have a glass teapot just for them, and mainly I just use it as a centerpiece. I have a couple called "peach blossom" that I bought when I was in NYC that I'll both display and drink, it's a decent green tea and only cotton string is used in them. I've had the Numi brand ones, and they are all decent as well.

I guess I'm just a mixture of bad experience with them and not interested when I have much better tea I can drink. Not snobbishly, that's just the way I see it.

- Dominic /as for luck I got rear ended solidly yesterday sitting at a red light totally stationary... so that should give you a frame of reference as to my "lucky" streaks.

Years ago, on a early Sunday morning with no freeway traffic, I exited an offramp with my choice of 3 left turn lanes at a light. I got a premonition not to use one of the lanes. A car pulls up next to me in that lane and got rear ended while waiting for the light to change. There were only us three cars on the ramp and one lane empty.

Jim

PS I got my tea blossoms from two reputable Ch> On Sep 27, 5:47 pm, Space Cowboy snipped-for-privacy@ix.netcom.com> wrote: ...

Thanks for the input everybody.

I'll assume that the "simple" tea balls, such as the Jade Flower at Tao of Tea:

Alan

Drinking boiling water over expensive string or plastic isn't enough to deter you?

Does anyone remember those pill-sponge small toys you could get from the gas station? They were little sponges inside of pills; the pill would desolve in water letting the sponge out. It would also take a minute...drinking the water was toxic.

And, with all the nonsense and dirty goods coming out of China these days, why do you think tea is immune from this?

When I drink tea blossoms with a net displacement of about 100ml string and plastic is the least of my worries. They don't dissolve, they don't fade, they don't change shape, that is all that counts. You are the Chinese equivalent in our country relating all the daily horror stories about Western processed foods. Herbicides and pollutants will fall to the soil. Processing will take care of most of the problem. Your water is more of a problem than the environment. I drink tea out of foam cups many times. I am still alive.

Jim

Mydnight wrote:

Hi! I do not know if all is meant for a good cuppa but the lovely artistic teas, that to me, have been pretty scarce until a few years ago. I do believe they put on a nice show, and I have given them to my little (um not so little now) nephew, after he became a big fame of Jasmine balls of course w/ the sugar bowl around. He was facinated that they were called "dragon balls" and made a nice beautiful seaweed bed in the cup. And they tasted really good. I am sure the sweetner helped. So getting him the artistic teas (by numi) really increased his passion for tea. This is good. Later as his palate gets more refined maybe he will derive much enjoyment from much better tasting teas! I also took some artistic tea to my mother who was dying in the hospital so she could see the beauty of someones art in tea form, which no one in my family had ever seen before. You must admit the work is mighty extensive and beautiful. ANd if it caused one person joy and awe, it was worth it to me. Jenn

Tea:

Alan, A friend gave me a glass "ginger jar" he bought in Chinatown SF with "peach flavoured green tea blossoms" inside called "Fairy Peach Green Tea" by a company called Tian Hu Shan in Fujian . They were sprayed with a light plastic covering (as Dominic inferred, similar to sizing) and were extremely inexpensive. The heat of the water breaks down the coating and voila! a blossom appears. Personally, I'm not crazy about drinking "a light plastic coating". I recently bought some very nice, unsprayed, plain old tasty green tea blossoms from Dragon Tea House on eBay. These were hand-tied and as far as I know, untreated. No jasmine. No plastic. A pretty good quality green for the price. I bought them as an intro to tea for a hesitant cousin. Gordon still has some and I can vouch for the quality. Shen

I do hope you enjoy your time in the alternative reality you are living in. Seriously, though, if you think drinking something that has plastic and string in it after pouring boiling water over it, and you think you will ingest NO chemical run-off from it, I don't know what to tell you. There are daily horror stories of processed foods for a reason, just as the teas so soaked in chemicals and grown in scorched earth locals here won't even drink it has cause for concern.

Call me a rabble rouser if you want. Looks to me like you are trying to ignore a problem that's coming to the forefront of the world's stage now, though. That's pretty ignorant.

Mydnight, Agree fully! Being called a "rabble rouser" is a fine compliment in my mind. There has been so much information available lately regarding plastics and heat in preparation of foods and liquids and the dangers therein .Shen