Need help with the Chinese characters on the packaging of natural tea leaves

[marsandbeyond]

Hello. I need help in translating the Chinese characters below.

Someone gave this to my mom. It would be interesting to know what these mean: 

 

 

The contents are like some sort of tiny bits of leaves rolled into little spherical shapes. Each rolled piece of leaf smells really heavy, soothing and nice (I think it's interesting to note). 

 

 

We are not sure if they are tea leaves, but we think so since the packaging has a teapot and teacups design. However, we really need to confirm it since we cannot understand Chinese characters.

Any help is highly appreciated. Thanks a lot. 

[edelweis]

the big character on top of the teapot is 茶 (tea)

the two vertical lines read 集天地灵气， 品人间好茶  not sure what that means, see google translate

The seal (3rd image) reads (I think) 精选茗茶 (selected tea)

 

About the shape, I couldn't be sure but it looks like gunpowder tea ? (which I have never had myself ...)

[Lu]

This is tea! Put a few of the little balls in a cup and watch them unfurl.

[marsandbeyond]

Hi Edelweis and Lu. Thank you very much! I really appreciate the help.

 

It's my first time seeing gunpowder tea (although they say it's pretty common). I read from the link "Rolling renders the leaves less susceptible to physical damage and breakage and allows them to retain more of their flavor and aroma." Yes the aroma is really retained. It's interesting. Now I want to learn more about tea~

 

Now that we know what it is we're going to use them. I'm really glad you helped out.

[abcdefg]

Now I want to learn more about tea~

 

So I'll give you the long answer instead of the short one.

 

It may not be Gunpowder. Many teas are rolled into little pearls 珠 like that，including all of the Biluochun 碧螺春 teas. Also, Jasmine tea 茉莉花茶 often comes rolled like that. What does it smell like? Jasmine should be easy to tell just by sniffing it even before it is brewed.

 

The small writing is just advertising slogans and decoration, they don't really convey any meaning about the contents of the box. Things like "This is wonderful, refreshing, healthy tea, the very best in China, everybody loves it" and such. All tea boxes have this kind of stuff on them.

 

It's a generic gift tea box, probably 50 Gram size, not labelled as a specific brand or flavor. Doesn't mean the tea is not good. I hope it is excellent.

 

The one thing I can tell you from the photo of the tea pearls is that it is a type of green tea. The importance of this is that you should not use boiling water when you brew it. Use water that is a little less than boiling, water that has come to a boil and cooled off a few seconds or is poured in a high stream so it can cool on the way down to the glass. Boiling water will make these green teas taste sharp; sometimes even bitter.

 

In big tea stores and wholesale markets, you buy bulk tea from open bales or large cartons, each holding several kilograms. After sampling the different teas, you tell the vendor how much you want to buy and he scoops it into a plastic bag on a scale. That's for home use.

 

If you want to put some in a cylindrical gift box, that costs 2 or 3 Yuan extra. A tin costs a little more, maybe 5 Yuan. I have a cabinet full of them.

 

Please return and let us know what your tea tastes like; how it brews up.