I love tea. 🍵 A few weeks ago, I was in a tea store and saw this bag of Jasmine Pearls.
I discovered why Jasmine Pearls command premium prices when I learned they're hand-rolled tea leaves infused with jasmine fragrance through a meticulous process, repeated five to seven times, where fresh flowers release their aromatic compounds naturally into the leaves each night.
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It was the most expensive tea I’ve seen, so naturally, I asked ChatGPT why it cost so much. It made me the infographic below.
Drop a pearl the size of a pea into hot water and watch. Within 3 minutes it sinks, opens up, and turns back into whole tea leaves. It’s amazing. What’s more amazing is the process it take to make what is in my cup.
Young buds and leaves are picked in early spring, withered, pan fired, and rolled by hand (BY HAND!) into small pearls. Then comes the jasmine. The flowers are picked in the late afternoon while they are still closed. They sit with the tea overnight and open, releasing their fragrance right into the leaves. The next morning the spent flowers come out, and they do it all again with fresh blossoms, 5 to 7 times or more.
The chemist in me loves that the aroma is real. In a good jasmine pearl, it’s not sprayed on but the leaves pull the aromatic compounds out of the air, one night at a time. That’s 5 to 7 nights of jasmine in every cup.
If you haven’t tried these little gems, they truly are incredible.
Here is the infographic from CGPT explaining the whole process and the bag.
