Dry tea leaves don’t look like anything special, but when you pour boiling water over them the transformation is magical! Even more so when you’re steeping a tea flower. Tea flowers are a combination of tea leaves and flowers or herbs that are sewn together and as it steeps it blooms.

For this timelapse, I tried putting the tea flower in my teapot first and then pouring the hot water over it. It was shot during the day using only the natural daylight from the window by my desk.

For this one, I decided to try pouring the hot water in my teapot first, and then dropping in the tea flower. This timelapse was shot at night using my LED desk lamp to light up the teapot.

Overall, I like the “bloom” in the second video the best, but I’m not sure whether I prefer lighting in the daytime video, or the nightime one. Which timelapse do you prefer? Let me know in the comments!