Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, October 22 – Anyone who knows me is aware that I could care less about shopping for shoes or purses, but, I LOVE to buy tea! I have a whole drawer of tea, which was overflowing, so today I decided to organize it. I found some “Blooming or Flowering tea,” called “kaihua cha” in Chinese, which I had bought at a tea market back in the spring and forgot that I had! I’ve also seen it called “fairy tea.” These are little balls of tied up tea leaves, usually either green or jasmine tea, and dried edible flowers such as carnations, roses, jasmine, peony, marigold, lily, etc.. Mine had a single flower, but you can get fancier kinds with multiple flowers. I don’t normally use pictures from other places, but, I’ve included one with diiferent kinds for sale on Taobao (the Chinese Ebay) so you can see the fancy ones. You use either a small glass teapot or glass; something like a big wine glass works nicely. Pour in hot water and within a minute or two the flower ball will start to open! And once you finish the first glass, you can enjoy a second and sometimes third, with the same flowers and tea leaves. Following is the link where I got the picture of the different kinds from: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.87.W7xoMH&id=41555278903&ns=1&abbucket=7#detail