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Exotic Tea Blends: Lhasha & Donna's Favorites
“All true tea comes from the Camellia sinensis plant, a highly-cultivated evergreen bush best known for producing white, green, oolong, black, and rare pu’erh tea. I would like to offer you some of my favorite true and herbal tea blends for your health and enjoyment.”
—Lhasha Tizer
- Dried Osmanthus Flowers and Green Tea
- Dried Rose Buds or Petals and Black Tea
- Pu’erh Tea
- Decaffeinating Your Own Tea
Dried Osmanthus Flowers and Green Tea
Tea facilitator:
Donna Fellman and Lhasha Tizer
Osmanthus is a flowering shrub that grows in China’s Yangtze River Valley and southern regions. Known for its golden-yellow flowers and sweet, fragrant aroma it compliments green tea yielding a gentle, delicate taste. It can also be drunk alone as an herbal infusion.
China green teas go well with the osmanthus flower producing a naturally scented tea. Green tea known for its plant-like, herbaceous taste, strong antioxidant properties, and mild caffeine content will be enhanced by the natural fruitiness of osmanthus. Drink by day or night, it is so mild you will find that you need no added sweetener at all.
Ingredients to make one 8 ounce cup of tea:
2-3 grams or 2 heaping teaspoons of green
tea
1 teaspoon osmanthus blossoms
Heat filtered water to below boiling (175 degrees) and pour over tea leaves to make an infusion. Let steep about 3 minutes. Enjoy!
Dried Rose Buds or Petals and Black Tea
Tea facilitator: Donna Fellman and Lhasha
Tizer
Rose buds or rose petals have been used for centuries in both China and Europe as an herbal tonic to supplement natural beauty of the skin and overall well-being. The essential oil in roses is known for its perfumed fragrance, its positive effects on body circulation, and as an aid in digestion.
Black teas that go best with rose petals are of the stronger, richer variety such as Yunnan, Assam, or a blend like English Breakfast. Black tea is most well known in the U.S. and Europe as a wonderful wake-up breakfast beverage as it warms the body and augments the stomach and digestion especially when combined with rose buds. A wonderfully flavorful blend, black tea also contains life-promoting antioxidants that help to keep us healthy. This tea can be re-steeped.
Ingredients to make an 8 ounce cup of tea:
2-3 grams of black tea or 1-2 teaspoons
5-6 dried rosebuds or 1-2 teaspoons of dried rose petals
Heat filtered water to boiling and pour over tea leaves to make an infusion. Let steep about 4-5 minutes. Enjoy!
Pu’erh Tea
Tea facilitator:
Donna Fellman and Lhasha Tizer
Like all other true teas, pu’erh is made from the leaf of Camellia sinensis. But pu’erh is unique as the only truly fermented tea. The fermentation process is applied to green or black tea leaves and creates not only a unique flavor and fragrance to the leaves, it produces a leaf that yields teas with enhanced health-promoting properties. The Chinese have long revered pu’erh for its ability to aid digestion and assimilation of heavy meals. Modern scientific research has shown that enjoying a cup of pu’erh not only offers the health promoting qualities of all teas, it can help prevent the build up of plaque in the bloodstream.
To brew an 8 ounce cup of pu’erh tea, pour just boiled water over 3-4 grams of pu’erh (1 to 2 teaspoons) of leaves and let steep for about 15 seconds. Then pour off that liquid and re-infuse the leaves for 3 to 4 minutes to taste. The leaves can be infused a second time for 4 to 5 minutes. The second infusion will have little to no caffeine.
Decaffeinating Your Own Tea
Decaffeinated teas have been available for many years. Some teas are still decaffeinated by the original method, which involves chemical solvents. This inexpensive but harsh process leaves chemical residues in the tea leaves that are not only detrimental to your health and the environment, but can also alter the taste of the tea. A newer method uses carbon dioxide and pressure, and while it leaves no residues or taste, it’s more costly.
Rather than using either of these prepared decaffeinated teas, we recommend decaffeinating your own tea. It’s very easy. Caffeine is highly soluble in water and will release into the hot water at a faster rate than the other components of tea. Choose your tea and bring water to the proper temperature. Pour the water over the tea leaves and steep for thirty seconds if you’re using green tea, forty-five seconds for oolong, and one minute for black. A large measure of tea’s caffeine content will come out in this first brewing. Pour off this initial infusion and now brew your tea for the desired amount of time.
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