Reading the Tea Leaves

As our bus climbed up a hill in AnXi county in Fujian, we enjoyed views of tea gardens on the slopes of the valley we left behind.  The higher we went, the more expansive the vista of green terraces.  Adding to our pleasure was the scent of gardenias wafting in through the windows.  The narrow road was lined with gardenia trees, and while we first assumed they had been planted to enhance the overall landscape, we later learned that there is a gardenia scented Oolong produced in the area.

Gardenia scented Oolong

Flower-scented teas (hua cha) have a long history in China, and Jasmine is the most popular.  (For more detail about the making of Jasmine tea, see my post “In Summer’s Heat.”)  Other flowers used to scent teas are osmanthus, roses, and magnolia.  The tiny yellow blossoms of osmanthus are also found in syrup and used as a garnish on desserts.  Not always easy to find but worth the search, Osmanthus Green is a lovely, friendly tea with natural sweet notes.

China Rose Black Congou

More readily available is Rose Black tea, easily identified by the pretty petals left in among the leaves.  The fragrance is not cloying and a far cry from potpourri.

Jasmine Oolong used to be somewhat popular but like Jasmine Black tea, it is not commonly found in stores now.

The best known fruit used to scent tea in China is the lichee, for lichee Black tea.  A luscious summer treat, the juicy lichee is fragrant with tropical aromas.  Dried, it is one of many treats served during New Year’s.  Lichee Black tea makes a good accompaniment to Chinese meals, and there are some Cantonese restaurants that serve this as their standard tea.  With its natural sweetness, Lichee Black is delicious iced.

Earl Grey Black (w/cornflower & larkspur petals)

Bergamot, known as Buddha’s Hand, is from the citrus family and gives Earl Grey Black and Earl Grey Green teas their distinctive fragrance; these are not very popular in China.  (There is natural bergamot flavoring as well as artificial bergamot flavoring.)

Close-up of cornflower petals

It is curious that China’s White teas are not, traditionally anyway, scented with flowers or fruits.  The combination would certainly be pretty: imagine Silvery White Needles with tiny rosebuds — a blend that is seen outside China.  Perhaps this has to do with the fact that most Chinese are not big White tea drinkers, whereas the internet has made this tea wildly popular in this country.

If you review tea menus at tea salons or teashops, you’re likely to see many flavored White teas: mandarin orange, melon, pear are some of the popular flavors.  As for flowers, they show up beautifully — bright yellow, pink, red, even blue petals — sprinkled among Green or Black tea leaves.  Together  with fruit bits (peach, mango, pineapple, berry), these combinations are lovely to look at with their almost confetti-like gaiety, and with the aid of technology, their tastes are wide ranging.  I have seen an Earl Grey Black enhanced with blue and white petals, a Cranberry with round red pieces and eye-popping yellow petals among Green tea leaves, and pumpkin and carrot bits added to other blends.  (In contrast the China Lichee Black has nothing to show for its lovely addition of fruit; there is only the lovely sweet fragrance emanating from the leaves and from the cup.)

For here we cross the threshold into what chemical wizardry can offer. Like jellybeans, the concocted flavors added to teas are often remarkably true to the original.  At a small tea cafe recently, I stopped for a mug of peach flavored White tea.  Once the server opened the canister, the inviting aroma of peaches was unmistakable. The brew, as one might expect from a White, was mild and light in color, but the taste of peaches was assertive.  (As to the tea, I thought there was more Green than White in the blend, but that is for another post, “White Tea or Green?”)

A flavored "White"

Later that same day I had a cup of Tung Ting at home, sometimes known as Frozen Summit or Winter Summit, a lightly oxidized Oolong from Taiwan.  As the familiar fragrance and taste developed from the cup, I wondered how a tea like this could compete with the Peach Flavored White.

The peach flavored tea thrusts its character boldly from the very beginning to the last sip, whereas the Tung Ting’s dry leaves gave little away as to what was in store.  As the leaves unfurled, however, some of the fragrance began to build, and that wonderful floral sensation built with each sip.  By “floral” here I mean the light petal scent of an orchard or from young leaves, not from flowers, since Tung ting is unscented.  For want of a better term, many teas are described this way, even though no flowers are used in their processing.  This is the soft aroma of fresh blooms, not a heavy perfumy scent that clings.

Many lightly oxidized Oolongs have this quality; gentle bruising of the leaves and oxidation that is halted before the entire leaf changes its character (and becomes a Black tea) bring out this floral aspect from the leaves, varying slighlty from one varietal to another, thereby adding another layer to the tasting experience and memory.  It is elusive and hard to hold on to, drawing you to drink again and again, which is not a bad thing, but vastly different from the strong, unequivocal fragrance and flavor of teas that have been boosted with artificial flavorings.  It is harder to discern the character of the White tea that served as the basis of the peach tea, when the peach is so dominant.

A friend brewed me a cup of Pomegranate Green tea on a recent visit, a newish product, riding the coattails of the popularity of this fruit now that its antioxidant property has been recognized.  I expected a pale green-gold brew with a generic sweet flavor (the label on the tin had a lovely light green background); instead, the brew was a deep bright fuchsia, probably from a high proportion of hibiscus used in the blend.  The taste was tart along with sweet, and I couldn’t detect any flavor of Green tea.  If it did not appear on the list of ingredients, I would not have guessed that there was any.  As for the pomegranate flavor, I’ll have to take it on faith that the taste was just that.

So if your taste buds have become accustomed to the pronounced flavors of strawberry and orange, even chocolate and tiramisu, in teas, will you ever go back to conventional unflavored teas or naturally flavored/scented teas?  Even those may seem pale in comparison to artificially flavored teas.  Many turn their noses up at fruit-flavored wines, but even a casual perusal of tea menus shows the large proportion of flavored teas compared with conventional, unflavored options.  Having tasted a Mandarin Orange Flavored White tea, will a plain White tea ever seem as satisfying?