China Jasmine

There is a lovely little tea cafe/bar in Melbourne that I visit from time to time. Once of the most exciting parts is that they serve cocktails with tea in them. One of my favourites was the Gin & Tonic is Jasmine Tea, I fell in love with it almost instantly. Sadly it’s a little pricey to go there all the time just to have one cocktail, so my friends and I made our own version.

Jasmine tea + gin = amazing

China Jasmine + gin = heaven

Mix about five or so teaspoons of this into your preferred brand of gin, and you have one of the most amazing drinks you’ll ever taste. The harsh edge of the alcohol is washed away, and replaced with the lovely scent and subtle taste of the Jasmine tea. It is heaven in a glass.

Leave the China Jasmine in the gin for at least a day before drinking it, the leaves slowly infused over time. I prefer to leave the tea leaves in the gin, so as you make your way through the bottle the flavours change slightly, bringing a new taste every time.

This tea is excellent.

I’ve gotten fanatical about jasmine teas (not reflected in reviews because lately I’ve been reviewing teas on paper scraps, but they will be on Steepster later), and what I’ve noticed is that some lack the freshness of taste that really makes a good jasmine tea delicious, which is a real shame. This tea does not. It’s fresh, heady, and makes a thoroughly good iced tea. It’s almost a bit perfume-y, but that gives the impression that it’s fake tasting or excessively strong, which is isn’t. I don’t know how they’ve achieved this strength of jasmine flavour without making it taste perfume-y in the negative sense. It’s balanced very well. It’s the best jasmine I’ve had, and I’m now so glad that I have a big pack of it in this hot weather.

I have something like eight or ten more jasmine teas on the way to me from Upton Tea Imports, and another bag that I got from a critically praised tea shop in Sydney, so my mind might change, but at the moment, this is the best to me. It’s just so damned good, and when mixed with a little freshly squeezed orange juice makes an iced tea to die for.

I drank like a litre of this out of a mixing bowl from the freezer today, after having drank a giant three-cup mug of it earlier. I’m not even ashamed of those facts.

I was reluctant to buy this and the other (Melbourne Breakfast) T2 tea that I got, because T2 doesn’t offer sample sizes, and I didn’t think buying full-sized boxes of chain store tea would work out well, but in this case, my reservations have been really unfounded.

When I’ve been buying/ordering tea lately and there’s been so many jasmines, a tiny part of me has thought, “Do you really need to try more jasmines? Can’t you have too much jasmine?” This tea has simplified the answer: NO!

So delicate and refreshing. I love the smell and the way it warms me with its beautiful blossom aroma