I’ve never heard of Puripan Tea Garden until my cousin was visiting a while back.  Knowing how much I enjoy drinking tea, she gave me a bag of Puripan’s organic jasmine green tea.  The tea shop is located at Santana Row in San Jose.  They specializes in loose leaf green, white, oolong, and other herbal teas.

These green teas are shaped into little round balls called “pearls”.  The leaves open up once it’s brewed.  As much as I like green tea, I didn’t really like this particular green tea.  I don’t know if it’s the “loose leaf” factor or how I brewed it.  I even brew with filtered water too.  I found this jasmine green tea to be too bitter.  And the jasmine scent was meant to be nice, but it ended up giving me a headache instead. Just so I wouldn’t waste this good bag of tea, I let my mom give it a try.  And she actually ended up loving it!  Now she is drinking it all the time.

Photo of Puripan Tea Garden from Santana Row Shopping Center.

Puripan Tea Garden retails many varieties of loose leaf tea, which is suppose to be the best grade of tea available.  I’ve been wanting to stop by soon and see what other great teas are at the shop.  There are plenty of good online reviews about their service and selection too.  The best part being they let you sample the teas before making a purchase.

Even if you can’t visit the shop, you can still visit their nice website and browse the selection of green, white, oolong, and other herbal varieties.  Since I am into oolong at the moment, I think I want to try  WUYI oolong tea.  A description from Puripan:

Known as “Profound Orchid,” this unique tea is harvested on the cliffs of China’s northern Fujian province Wuyi Mountains, where the soil, climate and unique tea bushes create exquisite oolong.

Smooth, rich body and classical roasted aroma with sweet notes of raisin/sugar, honeysuckle, and roasted barley. Lingering sweet finish.  $5.99 for 2 oz.

Did it say an aroma of honeysuckle in the end?  I love the smell of honeysuckle.  The scent is a little less intense then jasmine, but still very nice.

My latest tea obsession is oolong tea.  I am now drinking Prince of Peace organic Oolong tea.  The tea is from China’s northern Fujian province.  I have always been drinking mostly green tea in recent years, mixing it with white tea and fruit tea.  But I am not a fan of black tea.  Oolong for me is more like a mix of green and black tea.  It’s a very mild tea with a bright golden color.  It never gets bitter and has a pleasant reminscent of coffee too.  A cup of oolong tea contains 30 mg of caffiene. I usually drink tea instead of coffee.

Oolong is mostly grown and processed in China, but much loved in Japan.  Oolong tea is harvest very differently then other teas.  The first stage is picking units of one bud and three leaves.  Followed by exposure to the sun.  The second stage is to dry them indoors to promote fermentation. The most important part in the production of oolong tea is when to stop fermentation.  This happens when the leaves are 30% red and 70% green.  It is now semi-fermented.  Then during the final stages, they are rubbed repeatedly to generate good flavor, aroma, and texture. Some say this makes it more gentle on your stomach as well.  And finally allowed to dry using charcoal.

Tea has been in the news lately for it’s health benefits.  Tea contains a large amount of polyphenols, namely tannin.  According to the Department of Dentistry, Osaka University, consuming polyphenol found in oolong tea  helps fight tooth decay significantly.  There are even claims that drinking tea also helps beat obesity.

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