19 May 2015

Learning to Relax, with JING Tea



This month, more than any, I've found it increasingly hard to relax and take a breather. The word "unwind" has never even crossed my mind for more than a fleeting second. I've adjusted to a freelance lifestyle over the past year or two, but I still haven't mastered to art of shutting off from my work. Do you get that? I just keep on going, because I don't want to miss anything, or indeed get behind on deadlines. 

I'm split 50/50 when it comes to tea + coffee, but inevitably drink coffee much more frequently because of the sheer amount of meetings that take place in coffee shops. But, I'm actually a big advocate of tea and its benefits - in fact, I rarely drink coffee at home. Tea is my go-to cuppa. I haven't had any experience when it comes to loose tea, but I was given the opportunity to try a select range of hand-picked Chinese Tea by JING. I was keen to see how loose tea compared with the bagged stuff.
 


I was provided with all I needed to make the perfect cup of tea. A selection of organic loose teas; Dragon Well, Jade Sword + Peppermint, a beautifully designed Tea Infuser, and equally pleasing Tea Timer. Each sachet of tea came with details of the date and province it was picked in. This added an unexpected emotional attachment to each cup - one which I was very comfortable with.

With Hollie's Mum acting as my "tasting assistant", we chose to start with the Jade Sword - for its light floral smell - and we poured the suggested temperature of hot water into the infuser; setting the Tea Timer to three minutes.

What we ended up with was the most delicate and tasty cup of tea I'd ever tried. It did make us question why we've only been using bagged tea up until now! We repeated the process with the Dragon Well (which suggested a different temperature from the first) with similar results - it was a little more nutty, but equally tasty.
 


We ended with a round of the Peppermint Tea. As dry leaves the Peppermint smelt like crazy amounts of refreshing, so we were pleased that the taste was carried through when made up in the infuser. The infuser works by filtering hot water through several tiny cuts in the glass, and then reacts with the leaves in the best kind of way. It was just as relaxing watching the three minute process as it was drinking it the tea.

So, my question to you is, have any of you used loose tea leaves before, and why haven't you told us how good they are?! Do you prefer to relax with tea or keep alert with coffee?

Thank you to JING for provided us with this tea set, all opinions are straight from Buckets.

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