Things I've Learnd About Vietnamese Tea

Try making it with cooler water... it can get overpowering very quickly if it steeps too long, too.

--scott

I made it with 170F water and a 1-minute steep. My original estimation stands. I just don't care for the sharp, medicine-y smell/taste of lotus. I'll stick with jasmine or rose when I want a floral tea.

stePH

-- I'll brew another pot of ambiguity.

I made it with 170F water and a 1-minute steep. My original estimation stands. I just don't care for the sharp, medicine-y smell/taste of lotus. I'll stick with jasmine or rose when I want a floral tea.

stePH

-- I'll brew another pot of ambiguity.

It is very sweet in an almost rotting kind of way, but I like it.

Have you tried osmanthus green tea?

--scott

Osmanthus is a bit too flowery for me personally, yet I love Jasmine and Lotus. Of a number of lotus teas I have drank, strangely enough I like the Tazo Lotus Root green tea a lot. It is not a very good green tea but the lotus flavor is very good so it balances out to be decent and enjoyable.

Jasmine pearls are still my favorite "flowery flavored" tea. Rose and Osmanthus are too perfumy for me. Lotus is absolutely an aquired taste, but there are also wildly varying tastes to different lotus tea... I wouldn't give up after just one or two.

- Dominic

When it comes to scented teas I rather see pieces of the flower or fruit for the scent. I just don't trust the aroma alone. If it is a flower or fruit you can find it dried somewhere. My favorite dried scent, honeysuckle plus it is as sexy as yinzhen in the pot.

Jim

Dom> > stePH wrote:

In Vietnam (and Cambodia) I found lotus scented teas mostly prepared as pretty thin iced tea, mostly served free in street restaurants and yayaya I liked it so much that I went shopping for those leaves. In Saigon (tea shops) as well as in Chau Doc (market) I found a lot of different qualities to choose from (whole/broken, amount of lotus added, ...) Served hot it´s not exactly my kind of tea, but iced w/o sugar IMO it makes for a nice refreshing beverage in those insane temperatures. Whenever I´m in SE-Asia these days I carry a 1 litre thermos with thin iced matcha, sencha or flowered (lotus/rose) tea. Whenever I´m running out I head for a 7/11, pay 5-10 baht for a cup of hot water, fill up my thermos with free crunched ice (nobody ever asked me to pay for it), steep tea of choice in hot water, pour it over the ice and enjoy.

Karsten

Surely! I have some wonderful Blackberry Sage black tea with full plump dried blackberries and pieces of sage, as well as some organic Strawberry Sencha with large bits of dried strawberry (once found an entire half of a strawberry), papaya/passionfruit, sasafrass, ginger, and ginger/peach.

Almost more important though is that once reconstituted the fruit is edible *and* sweet. It should taste like the fruit should, not just some remnants or sour bits tossed in after the fact.

- Dominic Drinking: Lipton Green Label DJ

Okay, I will try others, but Trâ Tiên lotus sucks.

stePH

-- I'll brew another pot of ambiguity.