This is the story of how I recently watched a flower bloom in my cup of tea. Wait, make that my wine glass of tea.

Perhaps you're already familiar with a hot new trend of flowering teas. I had never heard this before, until I encountered it when a friend took me to a hip restaurant during a recent trip to San Francisco.

The people at a nearby table were drinking something that looked like a sea anomone in what appeared to be an extremely large glass of Chardonnay.

Just then the waitress came to our table to take our drink orders.

"What's that?" we asked. Instead of an answer, we got a knowing wink. "Try it," she told us. "You'll really like it." And so we ordered them not knowing what to expect.

A few minutes later, two wine glasses appeared a very unappealing wad of weeds at the bottom. This looked bad. Then, our waitress poured boiling water into the glasses.

And miraculously, the weed began to unfurl itself into a complex and lovely flower. It was fragrant and each petal (if that's the right word) blossomed slowly so the effect was a little magical.

Once it cooled down, we took a sip. It tasted... well, just like tea. It was fine, but nowhere near as spectacular as the little show we'd just witnessed.

Later, when our check arrived, we learned that each tea cost $7. It was a little shocking to spend $7 for tea, but hey... how often does drinking tea seem like an adventure?

Several tea companies now offer flowering teas, and each one is handcrafted to bloom on queue. Food forecasters also expected to be one of 2007's hottest food trends; they garnered a lot of attention at the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, I've bought a box. I'm saving it for my next dinner party because it seems like such a fun, easy way to impress guests.