Leo's colleague gave him some tea that a friend had gotten in China.
Instead of your normal tea bag or loose leaf, this tea came in an oddly alien looking pod, that opened up like a flower.
Click for bigger
But this ain't just another pretty face, it was fragrant and absolutely delicious. This is my kind of alien pod. Does anyone know where you can get this sort of tea, here in the states? Is that even possible? Are you dizzy from watching the animation?
This might be something similar. I googled "flower tea" and found the site below. It doesn't look exactly like what you have in the animation--but very, very close.
I hope you find what you're looking for!
http://www.theteatable.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=1000DF&Category_Code=allproducts
You can buy the tea here:
http://www.adagio.com/misc/display_teas.html?SID=3a848fa5e4290d1ceee2353b3650a58c
This looks like one of my favorite teas, Numi. The one you have pictured looks like it might be the Dragon Lily which is one of my favs. I get it at my local specialty coffe shop but you can also find it online here http://www.worldpantry.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/CategoryDisplay?cgmenbr=175633&cgrfnbr=191379
I've bought a couple boxes of similar tea at the Adagio site that Heather posted. Mine are larger than the one you show, but beautiful and delicious.
adagio.com and dragonwater tea are two online shops that sell such magnificant beauties. I bought some from Adagio and looove it so much.
Here in Victoria you can get similar teas from the Silk Road Tea Company. They ship internationally...
http://www.silkroadtea.com/shaped_teas.htm
Adagio teas. I had the exact same thing for the first time last week. Weird, huh?
i loved the animation, i had no idea there were teas like that. i might just have to investigate!
I have to 2nd or 3rd the ones from Adagio - they are incredible.
Hi there, I think you can get these at the Tea Zone in NW (I think around 10th and Glisan). They had them a couple years ago, but I haven't been in in a while. Looks beautiful!
I've seen these tea pods at Sur La Table under the name Teaposy (http://www.surlatable.com/product/books+%26+food/food/coffee+and+teas/teaposy%26%238482-+tea+medley+gift+set.do).
I'll second the reference for Adagio - I haven't seen them anywhere else. I feel like someone else in blogland posted about this recently, but I can't remember who....
I love the animation though :)
I've seen these at Teavana in the mall. It looks like there's one of these in Washington Square in Portland. Mmm, plus Teavana always has several yummy samples to try while you browse!
This is do pretty--I have sean tea like this on a web site I purchased tea pots from for my shop--I will try to locate the name for you.
Wow, I'm definitely going to try that... hopefully it tastes as yummy as it looks. Thanks Marnie and people who commented.
This might be just the thing for Mom for Mother's Day! Thanks!
Omg, that's too weird!
You know, I was visiting my parents in Japan over Spring Break, and they showed me a package of special tea that they said would blossom into flowers once immersed in hot water. This must be something like that. Very interesting to see the photos!
How neat! I just saw tea that bloomed like that in the movie Marie Antoinette. :) I didn't know you could get them now.
You can find that wonderful tea at a natural foods store. Do you have Whole Foods near you. If not I work at a natural foods store and I will be more that willing to send you some!!
I have no idea where you can get it, but that is SO COOL!
I just saw some at Kitchen Kaboodle yesterday.
I think this is my first post here, (I just popped over from MOD's post about knitting machines). Anyway, I've had flowering teas from Numi Teas. There should be a link to the flowering teas in the menu bar, top right. They're fun to watch open.
Whoops. The url is numitea.com not numiteas.com, sorry!
You can also find the teapots and some gift sets here: http://www.worldpantry.com - search word "flowering tea".