Blooming tea.

Tea blooming

Flowering teas are tea leaves and tiny, delicate flowers hand-rolled into a ball shape. "Raw" they look very inconspicuous, but when thrown into hot water the real spectacle begins. As the tea leaves unfold, they reveal more facets to us. The initial ball develops its leaves, with time it acquires unique shapes, to finally turn into a stately flower in an astonishing way. When it unfolds in all its splendor, we are left to enjoy its appearance, and then drink the infusion thus prepared. The harvesting of flowers and plants is usually done in spring, in sunny weather. The production process begins with picking by subjecting the top leaf and tea shoot to a drying process to hand-rolling them along with the dried flowers into special shapes, such as balls or mushrooms. The production of Chinese flowering tea is a work of art. It requires special artistic skills to conjure up such fantastic shapes using various flower and plant compositions. Tea leaves and flowers are usually harvested at dawn, then selected and only the best varieties are chosen. Each batch of flower tea then undergoes a "taste inspection" before being packaged. Professional tea tasters sample new flavors. Tea tasting is an art, just like wine tasting, for example. Flower tea tasters also check the leaves and flowers for purity, freshness and quality.