Space Cowboy wrote:
> I have several commercial brands and one online vendor brand of YinHao
> Jasmine from a Chinese vendor. YinHao means Silver Tips more or less.
> There is lots of white tip but the leaf looks almost oolong in color.
> It might be a stretch to say it is a dark green. However the spent
> leaf is green. One of my Chinese boxes says Green Tea with Jasmine
> fragrance. The Internet says the base tea is green tea from the yearly
> spring scented with Jasmine blossom from the early fall. That seems a
> long time for green tea to sit around and not change colors. I'm
> wondering if anybody has YinHao where the leaf actually looks green.
> Jasmine is my last Chinese taste to conquer. I also probably won't win
> the lottery if I don't play or drink. I'll let others calm their
> spirits.
>
> Jim

Congrats for the effort, I know I get looked down for my love of
Jasmine, but hey I'm willing to take it. I tend to find that the green
teas I most enjoy with jasmine is fairly nondescript. I have enjoyed
some really amazing green tea (with full and beautiful jasmine blossoms
floating on top of the cup) but language barriers kept me from figuring
out the exact green tea used.

I don't like the nuttier greens flavored, like dragonwell, birds
tongue, etc. I don't even really like the green to be very vegetal
which normally is all me.

What I find to be the best is a green that has a slight floral note to
itself even unflavored to pair well.

To answer your question and to clarify for Lew, it is actually the
_tea_ that is made to wait for the blossoms. It goes like this for Yin
Hao, it is picked in April and put away until August when they pick the
jasmine blossoms. They pick them during the day and then at night they
"pop" this is when they layer the tea and flowers, and it is repeated a
few times with new flowers each time. From 1 to 5+ times this is
repeated. Many top grades are in the 5+ category, however I tend to
find I enjoy 2-3 as it is a little less intense. I have had one that
was said to have endured 7 (and in turn was supposed to be lucky as
well) and it was excellent but a bit too floral for me.

No matter how many I try and how much I spend, I come back to two
favorites. The crap-ass yellow tin jasmine green, and the Dragon Tears
(pearls) from Numi. I was utterly disappointed with even the best that
Ten Ren had to offer, and many of the Yin Hao I've bought online has
been so-so and only marginally better than the Dragon Tears. The yellow
tin jasmine green can be brewed to produce an extremely fine cup of tea
with a lot of care and attention to detail, I actually find it a
challenge I enjoy.

It's all in the brewing, and it takes some skill to get the two flavors
to come through properly. It's actually like brewing two teas at once
to get a perfect result even though they need almost seperate
conditions.

- Dominic