Thanks to tea bento for the generous sample set. The dry leaf of this wild silver needle has a scent that is equal parts floral and hay. I steeped according to package directions: gong fu style, 80-85c, 4 steeps of 30s/15s/2min/5min. I didn’t try to get a fifth steep out of it.
The first steep was by far the best. It brews up very pale with a savory aroma of hay and sticky rice. The sticky rice note carries over into the flavor, which I really like.
Subsequent steeps also brew up pale but bring out an astringency in the leaf. The second steep is mildly astringent, with a dominant flavor of hay. The third steep had faint notes of cooked rice and hay. It was hard to make anything out past that initial astringency in the sip but the taste of bitter greens did linger after the sip. The fourth steep was the longest, which seemed to cut down on the astringency. The robust savory scent of that first steep returns. The astringency is still present but the underlying flavors are stronger than in the second or third steeps.
Overall, I think I would have preferred this tea brewed Western-style for relatively short steep times to bring out as much of the savory notes as possible while suppressing the astringency.
