I thought the tea plant would go to seed if left on it's own. That is
flower and with cross pollination producing seeds which birds would eat
and and crap elsewhere with a chance to grow. Every leaf on every tree
I've seen is produced from some growth nodule first (origin of nipped
in the bud) including my Russian Olives which is considered a weed in
my state and smell better than my fruit trees. There is something in
the pu of which others speak but that comes from the wild tree. I have
some but no real tasting yet. I think my germinated leaf supposition
has been debunked. I'm still trying to account for the hardness of the
rolled leaf. The samples of which I speak are in commercial packaging
but I don't see the characters for ginseng anywhere not even the Wang
Zhong Wang. The TKY is not flavored with anything because I drink the
Orthodox versions enough. It is on the mild green side. I'm on my
fourth 8 oz cup seeded with 10 pods which I estimate at 2g total and
only one looks like a leaf and not a pod. There would be little taste
in the next cup. All I can say is this style of leaf from three
samples so far is nothing I've ever seen. I don't see any flavoring
producing this type of tea.

Jim

Alex Chaihorsky wrote:
> "Space Cowboy" > wrote in message
> oups.com...
> > I'm leaning toward the
> > suggestion it is an ungerminated leaf structure.
> >
> > Jim
> >
>
> What exactly do you mean by that? Leaf does not actually come from a
> germinated state, unless we are talking about tiny, barely visible ones that
> just comes out of the bud. And these are no Camelia teabuds for sure.
> Without exposure to the light a leaf cannot develop neither its size, no its
> color, so if after numerous brews these "nuggets" open up into something
> looking like a developed leaf that mean that this leaf was rolled into that
> "nugget" state after it has a chance to fully develop.
> May be they do not cover this particular tea with ginseng material, but they
> may use something else.
>
> Sasha.