Blooming Tea and its origins (History of Blooming Tea) 05/10/2020

Blooming tea, also widely known as artisan flowering tea, flower tea, or blooming flower tea, consists of edible flowers and tea leaves. Blooming teas come in a small bud or tea ball, which looks fairly plain, but when hot water is poured into them, they blossom into an exquisite floral display which thus gives the ‘wow’ factor and that one of a kind experience of watching the flower bloom. At the same time, different tea has different flavours which thus makes it customizable to your preference and liking. Every tea ball is handcrafted and hand sewn, which makes it unique and no two tea-balls are alike!

Origins of blooming tea

Despite the Chinese having a long history of drinking tea and the history of blooming tea or flower tea is relatively unclear, blooming tea is believed to be a fairly modern creation. It was designed by Yun Xue Tong, a lady from Fujian, China in the 1990s when tea sales were slow. It is said that during the 1990s, the most popular teas were flower teas or rose teas which were popular amongst the ladies.

Determined to increase traditional tea sales, Yun Xue Tong set out on a journey to create a new tea product that includes both flowers and traditional green tea. However, she did not want to have a simple product that just packed flowers and tea together as it would not be deemed as unique or interesting. She envisioned a tea that blooms with a flower when hot water is poured over it. Thus, this marks the start of the blooming tea that we have today. Her strong vision eventually led to creating a whole new type of tea in the industry. Today, the blooming tea industry has an annual turnover rate of 200 million, creating more jobs for tea masters and crafters in China.

Why are they so unique?

Every blooming tea is designed for the best result. Not all edible flowers can be used to make blooming tea. It takes rounds and rounds of experimenting to get to the perfect tea ball combination that blooms beautifully into a blooming tea.

Furthermore, every tea ball is handcrafted. The flowers are all hand sewn on, and if a blooming tea is not properly crafted, it might float to the top of the water, which affects the visual presentation of the tea.

Why Petale?

Petale’s blooming tea is made with organic maofeng green tea, which means hand-harvesting newly unopened tea buds to make the tea. Thus, it is a unique tea that wonderfully portrays to us the skills of the tea masters making the tea. With 12 different varieties of blooming tea from fruity to traditional, there will always be something for different moods and occasions. As the 2020 winner of the best Blooming Tea Business of the Year under the CorporateLiveWire Singapore Prestige Awards, Petale guarantees the best healthy, quality assured tea, and innovative experience be it for gifting, self-pampering, or even when hosting tea parties at home!