Blooming Tea Knowledge

What Is Blooming Tea? Discover Its Origin and Health Benefit

I was introduced to blooming tea via a Business Insider video while scrolling through Facebook. Amazed by how beautiful this tea is, I turned to the internet to find out more about what blooming tea is.



Known as blooming tea, flowering tea, or blooming flower tea,

this tea has only two ingredients: edible flowers and tea leaves. Blooming tea can comes in many designs and variations, making it the most beautiful and interesting tea of all time!

Blooming tea is made by bundling the bud of tea leaves (usually green tea leaves) around edible flowers before shaped into a round or oval tea ball sphere.

When steeped in hot water, the flowering tea ball expands and unfolds, revealing a beautiful flower design inside. As the tea brewing process mimics a blooming flower, it’s no surprise that the tea masters named it the blooming tea.

Contents

What is The Origin of Blooming Tea?

Although the Chinese have a long history of drinking tea, this beautiful artisan tea is a relatively modern creation. It is designed by Xue Tong Yun (薛彤云 [1]), a young lady from Fujian, China during the 1990s when tea sales were slow.

During the 1990s, rose tea or flower tea was popular among ladies in China. Although traditional tea sales suffered, it was easy to sell flower tea.

Noticing this trend, Xue Tong Yun set out creating a new tea product by including flowers in regular green tea. Although her goal was simply to increase tea sales, she did not settle down with just packing flowers and tea leaves together.

Instead, she visioned a flower that blooms in a cup when hot water was poured over tea. This is the origin of blooming tea.

Little did she know, her strong vision will one day lead her to create a whole new category in the ancient tea industry. Today, the blooming tea sub-industry has an annual turnover of 200 million, creating countless jobs for tea farmers and tea masters in China.

Each Blooming Tea Ball Is Meticulously Hand Crafted

Blooming tea is designed mainly for its aesthetic “wow” factor. Tea drinkers are visually delighted by the tea ball that slowly blooms when steeped. It quickly gained popularity in the West during the early 2000s.

Each blooming tea ball is delicately hand-sewn by an experienced tea master.

First, they tie up premium tea leaf buds into a bundle using either silk or cotton threads. Some merchants use white tea buds while others use green tea buds.

Then, edible flowers are carefully tied to the tea leaves bundle. Care is taken to make sure that the flowers are fully hidden and wrapped by the tea buds. The flower will not bloom properly when steeped if this crucial step is not properly handled.

Some of the popular flowers used in making the blooming teas include Globe Amaranth, Jasmine, Chrysanthemum, and Osmanthus.

After that, the tea master will roll the bundle of tea leaves and flowers into a sphere and wrap it using a cloth, giving it its iconic ball shape.

The rolled flowering tea is then dried and unwrapped before being packaged and ready for sale.

what is blooming tea

Disclaimer: This picture is originally provided by 炎暑集茶叶专属店, a tea merchant from taobao.com
Steps are translated into English by mybloomingtea.com

The Art Of Balance Behind Each Flowering Tea Design

As mentioned earlier, blooming flower tea comes in a variety of designs. However, not all edible flowers can be included in the blooming tea. Rose, for instance, is not suitable as it forms white precipitation when steeped together with tea.

Besides the chemical reaction that affects the aesthetic of blooming tea, each flower type has different floating properties. It takes many rounds of experimentation, effort, and patience to find the right floating balance for each flower combination.

If you refer to the picture below, a premium blooming tea requires its base to sit at the bottom of the glass container while the hidden flower blooms and floats to the top. This resembles how flowers bloom in nature.

what is flowering tea

If a blooming tea is not properly crafted, it may float to the top of the water, greatly affecting its stunning visual presentation.

What Is The Health Benefits Of Blooming Tea?

As blooming tea is made of the bud portion of regular tea leaves, it brings you all the health benefits of drinking tea.

Blooming tea that is made of green tea leaves is a rich source of antioxidants. This helps reduces the free radicals in your body cells and may lower the risks of certain diseases.

In addition, drinking tea can help with digestion, especially after a satisfying full meal. Green tea contains a substance that increases body metabolism to burn off excess fat. Therefore, many consider green tea as the best tea to drink for weight loss.

What’s the Best Way to Enjoy Your Blooming Flower Tea?

Step 1. Place a flowering tea ball to the bottom of a clear & transparent glass teapot.

Step 2. Pour in hot boiling water from your kettle to fill the glass.

Step 3. Wait for the tea ball to bloom into a beautiful surprise. Enjoy the visual presentation and strong flower aroma before tasting the beautiful blend of flowers and tea.

If you’d like to see more tips on how to get the perfect brew, kindly refer to my detailed guide on how to brew the perfect blooming tea.

Where To Buy Blooming Tea?

Tea lovers, are you getting excited? I find blooming tea to be an excellent conversation starter in any event. You might want to consider buying blooming tea for your next function, gathering, or dinner party.

Let me know how it goes!

In addition, do let me know in the comments below if there is anything else that you’d like me to cover in this article.

Reference:

[1] Profile of Xue Tong Yun, 薛彤云, the lady who invented blooming tea.

 



11 thoughts on “What Is Blooming Tea? Discover Its Origin and Health Benefit”

  1. Winnie,
    I learned so much from your post. I love tea and I am a bit surprised that I have never heard of blooming tea before. The blossoming of the edible flowers really made me want to try it. Maybe for my birthday!

    Reply
    • I’ve never heard of it myself until a video about blooming tea went viral on my facebook feed 🙂 They are absolutely beautiful to look at. Feel free to check back later for best recommendations haha.

      Reply
  2. Hi Winnie
    As I am English and a passionate tea lover. I have tried a variety of teas but I have not heard of blooming teas, you have educated me. I hope they taste as good as they look.
    I find the science interesting and wonder how it is done. Any ideas
    Thanks
    Antonio

    Reply
  3. Winnie, your article brought back some memories from my childhood. When I was little growing up in Fiji, my dad’s business partner was from Hong Kong and he used to bring my dad loads of tea leaves similar to the ones mentioned in your post. As a child I never cared for the taste, of course. lol. But as an adult I found some great health benefits from it. So, I may give Bloomington tea a try. Thanks for writing an awesome informative article!

    Reply
  4. Hey Winnie,

    Thanks so much for this article! The process looks very cool and I’m interested in making some at home for some family members.

    Do you know where I can buy the right leaves? I can’t seem to find any that are quite like the pictured ones. They look like they’re long and thick, and are their stems still attached?

    I’d really like to make some homemade ones, rather than store bought.

    Cheers,

    Reply
    • Hi Luke! I’m glad to hear that you like my article 🙂

      Blooming tea is made using only the leaf shoot of the green tea plant, which is why it looks small and thin. It might be tough to source for only just the leaf shoot.

      You might also want to check out silver needle tea leaves as well. They seem to retain their long and thin shape after dipping into hot water.

      Do let me know how your project goes! 🙂

      Reply
    • Blooming tea has almost been around for a millenia. It has been around since the Song Dyantsy and people have been butchering the origin ever since. It’s something that to me, represents my Chinese culture, and my grandmother used to have a pot on special occasions. Please don’t post about things that you don’t know about or that isn’t something significant to you.

      Reply
      • Hi Belle, appreciate your feedback. I apologize if this article makes you upset. Just to clarify, I did look up the history of the blooming tea industry by checking out Chinese documentary prior to posting this article on the internet.

        I would be more than happy to add on to the history of the blooming tea if you can direct me to the right sources.

        Regards,
        Winnie

        Reply
  5. Hey Winnie,

    Thanks so much for this article! The process looks very cool and I’m interested in making some at home for some family members.

    Do you know where I can buy the right leaves? I can’t seem to find any that are quite like the pictured ones. They look like they’re long and thick, and are their stems still attached?

    I’d really like to make some homemade ones, rather than store bought.

    Cheers,

    Reply

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