Pinky's Up, It's Tea Time

My recent trip to London really helped to open my eyes to the joys of frequent tea consumption. While I can't imagine consuming 5 cups a day (yup that's the UK average), I'll scrounge up at least a couple of cups a week. The world of tea has its limits with excitement and complexity (for me at least), but there is something not-so-new that is growing in popularity here in the 'states'. 



Flower tea, also known as blooming tea, is actually originated in China a LONG freakin' time ago. Some noted origins date as far back as the Song Dynasty - a thousand years back. And some types of flower teas include the flowers: chrysanthemums, jasmine, carnations, marigolds, calendulas, and osmanthus.

Done with the mini history lesson, making this tea is 10000x cooler. It's very light in taste, has no caffeine and has a big wow factor in terms of serving. They are more expensive than regular tea, not talking outrageous here, but we paid about $8 USD for each flower. Directions say that you can reuse each flower several times but I'm not so sure what we would store a soggy flower in. After the tea is steeped, you are actually supposed to remove the flower if you want it to be re-used later, so again, kind of awkward.

Any whooo, make sure you have a clear pot so you can watch this floral stuff in action! We used our Bodum coffee press. TIP: if you add any sweetener to your tea, go really light if you want to taste the flower tea better.