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Michelia alba Tea?
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Posted by dho1655 10 (My Page) on Wed, Jul 15, 09 at 15:44
| Has anybody tried to make tea with dried Michelia alba flowers? After about 5 yrs my tree is finally producing enough blooms for me to contemplate this. If we can use jasmine this way, why not M. alba? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Michelia alba Tea?
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| Don't do it unless you are sure it's edible. |
RE: Michelia alba Tea?
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| I remember one member mentioning that M. alba is used to scent tea leaves in China. I don`t think its toxic, but I once tried seeing what would happen if I steam a M. alba blossom (maybe my whole house would smell wonderful!) and the scent changes to something that was very nauseating. Not something I would want to drink because I would hurl. Jasmine sambac on the other hand has a better suited fragrance and you can for sure use it to make an herbal tea alone. And it smells good in the hot water. |
RE: Michelia alba Tea?
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- Posted by daxin z9 Bay Area (My Page) on
Fri, Jul 24, 09 at 2:28
| Michelia X Alba is used to scent tea in China by itself, and sometimes as the precursor scenting agent for Jasminum sambac scented tea. Since Alba is so strong in fragrance, much less flower is needed or the resulting tea will have too much fragrance. I think the petals of Michelia X Alba is safe to eat, at least in small quantities. One inventive young chef in Sichuan, China is offering a set of four dishes with fragrant flowers in his restaurant: Jasminum sambac with shrimp, Tuberose with Squid, Alba with rabbit, and Gardenia with fish. I'd love to try these since all the reviews are very positive, and there is no complaint of food poisoning. |
RE: Michelia alba Tea?
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| My Michelia x Alba has been making a large amount of flowers too. I tried making Michelia tea for the first time this year using what little information I could find on making jasmine tea. Since this was my first time, I'm not sure that everything I did was necessary. I used about a hundred grams of decent quality Japanese green tea. At dusk, when the new Michelia flowers open, I picked about twenty flowers and placed them on top of the tea in a large lidded cooking pot. I left the tea and flowers covered in the pot overnight. The next afternoon, I spread the tea out in a thin layer on a baking pan and removed the flowers. The tea was then dried in a 170 degree F oven and stirred every five minutes for ten minutes. They didn't seem dry enough, so I left them in the warm oven (turned off) for another fifteen minutes. That evening I repeated the process of placing the tea with the Michelia flowers. After the second night of adding Michelia flowers, I did a trial brewing of the tea with the flowers removed. On the first brewing, the flavor of the flowers wasn't very apparent. On the second brewing with the same leaves, the flavor was much more pronounced. I think I will repeat the flavoring a few more times. The tea needs to be dried after each evening because the leaves pick up moisture from the flowers, and dry tea leaves pick up the scent better. The tea needs to be dried really well before storage or else it will mold. |
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