Flower tea is an incredible accomplishment of human ingenuity and dexterity. To create flower tea, someone has to painstakingly hand-tie a bunch of tea leaves and flower petals into a bundle such that it will open (i.e. flower) when it gets soaked in hot water. It is an amazing art form, and just thinking about it is pretty mind blowing.
A lot of people like flower tea. Some do not. Me, I'm on the fence.
Flower tea does create a beautiful presentation, no doubt about it. (I don't find them creepy like the woman in that article, although I understand how someone could.) But when I make a cup of tea, I'm not out to appreciate a work of art. I just want some caffeine and antioxidants, and I want it STAT.
Flower tea is also considerably more expensive than regular tea, for obvious reasons.
I also don't really enjoy the prospect of having the completed flower bumping against my lips as I'm trying to drink my tea. Brewing tea in a teapot obviously prevents this from happening. But I almost never use a teapot. (It's just an extra additional step and thing to wash; who needs it?)
And as beautiful as flower tea is when it is blooming inside a full pot of tea, that is how horrible it looks after you have finished off the tea. It lies there at the bottom of your cup or pot looking like a soggy, bedraggled mess. Its former glory gone. It looks a lot more pitiful than just regular old tea leaves do, partly because you remember how pretty it used to be.
With all that in mind, I have to say that my favorite way to enjoy flower tea is from a distance. Like in pictures. When it comes to an actual beverage? Just give me the regular tea leaves anytime.
Image courtesy Flickr/naokomc
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