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Equusfell drank Silver Needle by Whispering Pines Tea Company

122 tasting notes

Picked this for a gentle tea to share with my fiance while rewatching The Two Towers.
Steep 1, 20 sec: Menthol sensation all over my mouth, slight prickly feeling from the trichomes I believe. Light sweetness and even lighter florals, but dominantly the flavor of fresh hay, before it has been baled.
Steep 2, 15 sec: Lighter in flavor and texture.
Steep 3, 30 sec: Much sweeter, with a sugar-in-the-raw sweetness.
Steep 4, 45 sec: More mineral sweetness, dominant hay and perhaps slight sage flavor in the aftertaste.
Steep 5, 1:30: Darker than previous steeps. Faint sugar, almost like aspartame, with a slight “boiled tree leaves” backbone. The same menthol-like sensation has accompanied each steep.
Yum, but I like my silver needle accented with jasmine more, I think. It is rare that an unflavored white tea is chosen by me. This was a generous sample, and I’m glad I got to try it, but I think I prefer Bai Mu Dan or Yabao.

Flavors: Hay, Sugarcane

Preparation

190 °F / 87 °C 0 min, 15 sec 3 g 4 OZ / 118 ML

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LuckyMe
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I agree, silver needles taste a lot better scented with jasmine.

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LuckyMe
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I agree, silver needles taste a lot better scented with jasmine.

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Bio

I started drinking something other than Sleepytime in my first year of grad school, 2011. Enabled by a few decent local tea shops in a big city, I amassed a small cupboard of teas that I now find harsh and bad (haha, I’m getting in too deep!). With my move back to the US and subsequent geographic isolation from tea shops, I recently discovered the world of online tea vendors.
My cupboard is slowly growing but still small. Regardless I am interested in swaps, if you find something in my collection that you would like to try, ask away! I just can’t guarantee yet that I have a lot of it!
I’m very into Jade oolongs and anything that has a floral character (especially jasmine, rose, violet, and lychee scented things!). Most green teas, excepting the extremely bitter, are good in my book, and again I seek sweeter, fresher, greener types, though nutty/savory teas have their place (as long as they don’t tip over into salty!). I then to shy away from smokey or overly roasted teas and for this reason and the fact that I am not a fan of chocolate, everyone’s favorite blacks and wuyi oolongs tend to fall flat for me. White teas are alright but I don’t tend to reach for them unless they are floral scented. I rarely drink herbals, chamomile and I do not get along, but a basic vanilla rooibos, or some flavored green rooibos’ can be interesting.
In general, it could be said that I tend toward floral and sweet oolong, sheng (as well as moonlight whites and yabaos), matcha, and green teas.

As of now my rating system follows the school grading scale in terms of how well the tea performs and how well I like it (100-90 A, 89-80 B, etc.). Anything above 90 will eventually end up in my cupboard, though it’s fine to keep a B student around for daily drinkers!

Location

Athens, Ohio

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