Jasmine Blueberry is a floral and fruity green tea blend from Art of Tea.
DRY LEAF: Interestingly, the dry leaf smells mostly like blueberries! Just a smidgen of jasmine scent.
The dry leaf consists of tightly spun dark green tea accented with dime sized blueberries, with the odd jasmine bud.
STEEPED: I followed the steeping instructions of 185F for 5 minutes. Geeze, I haven’t steeped a tea for this long for awhile.
While I wait 5 minutes, I grabbed a jellyfish to share my tea with.
In the end, I was left with a brown gold cup of tea, that smells interestingly like blueberry and jasmine floral.
TASTE: Gahhh, really bitter green and perfumey! Pour it out, POUR IT OUT!!!!!!!! /scares the jellyfish
Checking.. doh, the packaging was wrong! 3 minutes as per the Jasmine Blueberry page. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. Typo errors happen, or maybe Art of Tea updated the steep time online, but not on older packages, who knows. Admittedly, this tea Owl feels happy that it wasn’t my own error in screwing up this tea.
Let’s try this again, unfortunately, I only have 1 more cup left, so no iced tea. I discarded Art of Tea‘s steeping instructions and went with my favorite green tea blend steeping time of 175F for 2 minutes.
Jasmine Blueberry, with the lower temperature and steep time, is much better! The floral is jasminey sweet and moderate, say a 5/10 on the Floral-o-meter. Mid sip, the green tea hits me, which has a savory dandelion green bitterness that coats the entire mouth – 6/10 on the Bitter-o-meter. End of sip and after taste is a really good, natural blueberry flavor! There is a touch of astringency in this tea as well. The bitterness and astringency help carry the floral throughout the cup.
COMMENTS: Jasmine Blueberry is quite a promising green tea blend. If I had more, I’d try this at 165F or cold steeped, as I’m not a fan of bitterness in my tea. However, if you don’t mind a bit of bitterness or have a variable kettle, this tea has really nice jasmine and the blueberry is fantastic!
Tea Lesson: Double check steeping instructions on delicate teas.
(Tea provided for review)
