Chinese Tea Blends With Green Tea

Most of the time when I deal with Chinese tea it is in the form of whole leaf single estate. Now obviously I love this kind of brew and I would never dismiss it as being boring to only drink pure teas but I do not see why it would not be a good idea to open up our spectrum of cha drinking to include blends.

Now the scope for teablends is huge. I mean there must be innumerable combinations with fruits and herbs that you could make. For this reason I am just going to look at creating blends using Chinese teas. Even this is a hard task to keep focused as there are thousands of types of Chinese tea alone. So to narrow it down even further I am just looking at Green tea blends.

Green tea with Rosebuds - This is a classic blend. The roses mixed with Long Jing Dragonwell is, in my opinion, a wonderful combination. The vegetal taste of the tea (that some people don't like) is slightly overpowered but in a god way, by the addition of the floral rosebuds giving the tea a light sweetness that was not there before.

Green tea with Mint - Commonly sold as "Moroccan Mint" the base tea used in this blend is actually a Chinese Gunpowder tea. The mint can act to counterbalance the sometimes bitter taste that this green tea can posses. It is a popular drink in Morocco where it is served sweet.

Fruity Green tea - I have seen green tea mixed with all different types of fruit to create exotic and exciting blends. From strawberries to pineapple this is a popular blend.

Lemon Tea - Now I know I just pointed out that we could blend Green tea with any fruit but I thought that Lemon deserved its own point because it is a really popular blend! To make this tea you could simply add a slice of fresh lemon to your tea or you could buy one of the premade blends. It is so common in fact that you do not even have to stretch to loose tea (although I will always recommend that you do!) because many companies will sell this tea in teabag form.

Things to look out for:

Make sure that when you are buying blended teas that you check for additives and artificial flavourings. All flavours can be replicated so I would suggest sticking to whole leaf tea because it makes it harder (although not impossible) for chemicals to be added to the blend.
"Green tea" that doesn't even taste like it any more can also be a problem. You want to enhance the flavour not mask it so this is another issue to be careful of.

As always, experiment - whether you blend your own or buy it pre blended the world of Chinese tea blends with Green tea is your oyster!

If you have tried making your own blends and had success with it, I would love to hear from you. Or if you have any good recipe ideas please let me know! It's all about experimenting with different flavours and finding out what you like the most!