Chamomile Rose Silver Needle White Tea

This has been a weekend of constant interaction, the extreme introvert that is me is having a bit of burn out and in response to that, probably getting sick. Of course sickness can be alleviated somewhat with copious amounts of tea drinking, long soaks in a hot bath, and not coming out of my room for a few days. Yet another reason I need an electric kettle. Today we are going to look at a soothing tea, one filled with flowers and fuzzies.

Chamomile Rose Silver Needle White Tea by Teavivre is a beautiful tea blending Silver Needle from Fuding, Fujian, the chamomile is Winter picked in Sinkiang, China, and the roses are plucked in France during Autumn. When I saw this blend of tea and flowers I knew I had to try it, I was so glad they sent me a sample to try! The aroma is delightfully delicate and fresh, like flowers drying on a warm Summer day. I am not sure I have ever smelled a tea so evocative of the idea of Summer. The mix of heady rose and straw like aroma from the chamomile mixes very well with the dry, herbaceous aroma from the Silver Needle. Delicious and filled with the beauty of nature, that is a tea I will enjoy.

I love when I steep a tea and the aroma fills up the area I am in, it really heightens the tea experience and seems to make it last even longer than it would usually. The aroma is heavenly floral and herbaceous, the leaves take on notes of sage and thyme and are much stronger than the floral scents from the dry leaves. The liquid has very faint notes if sage mixing with the rose and chamomile aroma giving it a very clean feeling.

Time for the fuzzy trichomes to tickle my mouth, it is my favorite things about drinking Silver Needle tea. The taste is very clean and pure, it is a tea I would recommend drinking on a hot day or when you need a tea that refreshes you. I can certainly see myself putting this tea aside to drink when I feel feverish or too hot on the inside. The taste is also mildly sweet with a hint of the straw like taste of chamomile flowers, the Silver Needle carries on from the aroma and gives the tea a hint of a sage taste which blends well with the other flavors. But where is the rose you are probably asking, it is there at the end leaving a sweet floral aftertaste that will stay in your mouth for a few minutes. As the tea cools it becomes a little more sweet and a touch more floral. A very balanced and enjoyable drink filled with beautiful flowers.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/teavivre-chamomile-rose-silver-needle.html

I’m the first to write a tasting note on this tea. Thank you Teavivre for this sample!

This tea is really pretty! The white tea is fuzzy, and there are whole flower buds in there too! The dry leaf smells primarily of rose.
I used the whole packet. The tea brew smells very floral, especially of rose. The taste is floral, but more delicate than I was expecting. That is a good thing! I don’t find the flowery taste overpowering, but then again I like floral teas. In this first steep, I don’t taste the white tea much.
The next steepings are similar, with rose being the predominant flavor and aroma. I can taste the white tea in the background now, which is pleasant.
If you like rose, you will LOVE this tea.

I was worried the chamomile in this would be overwhelming but it’s not! A very pleasant flavored tea, white tea and chamomile at the beginning, a bit of rose at the end, and at the very end, a hint of fruity rosehip. Very good!

The rose and chamomile play off of each other perfectly in this tea. Chamomile gives it a smooth, almost buttery, flavor, and the rose gives it a bright aroma.

The white tea flavor is overpowered in the first brew by the chamomile. I found I could only get one re-brew of decent flavor out of it (the chamomile becomes milder, allowing you to taste the tea, and the rose almost disappears)

A word of warning: I tried to share this tea with friends and family, and those who weren’t generally green or white tea drinkers couldn’t taste it at all. I’m not sure if they were simply used to much stronger flavors or if it required a different set of tastebuds, but be prepared for disappointment if you’re a black tea (or coffee) drinker.

Trying to expand my repertoire. I picked this one because it has chamomile and I could definitely de-stress but also because I haven’t really developed the taste for chamomile. I was hoping the silver needle and rose would save me. I really need to include more types and ingredients with my general tea consumption but overall I stick with whites because let’s not forget why I got into this business.

In preparation, I was already using a chamomile hair mask from Lush (the “Marilyn” for us blonde types), and a Klorane eye mask with cornflower, so it was a theme. There was also pound cake and a Netflix marathon of The Vicar of Dibley which wasn’t on theme I think but there’s your stage set anyway. FUN STORY Peter Capaldi just showed up in the second episode and he looks like he could play young Tom Baker. The episode is from 1994.

This pot (30oz) was made from both a sample and a regular bag. Interestingly, the sample was all fuzzy silver needle with what I think was a fragment of a chamomile whereas the bag was a good mix with a lot of large buds.

I used about 1.5 teaspoons per 8 oz, the bag says 1-2 so I tried to be midrange. 194F, 2 minutes.

It’s a light color and smells strongly of honeysuckle. In taste, a delicate white with lots of sweet rose. I like rose so I like this a lot. There’s a slight, very slightly tart or sour aftertaste that I bet is the chamomile.

I know tiny cute teacup is the standard for the fancy loose leaf but I used a big Pinocchio mug. The flavor stays standard even as it cools, which I like. It’s very sweet and floral. I do feel less stressed but it is a holiday weekend, after all. Perhaps I should install this as my official post-work tea.

Sipdown 17 of 2016. Sample. Purchased 2/2015 – Finished 1/2016

This was a sample packet that I bought a while back. This is a really nice tea. It was sweet, not overwhelming with the chamomile and rose. It was a really calming cup. It also gave me an alertness that I really enjoyed. This would be a tea I wouldn’t mind adding to my TeaVivre cart at some point.

Water: 8oz

Leaves: medium leaves + rose buds & chamomile

Steep: 1m,2m,3m

Aroma: floral

Color: Pale yellow

Taste: I got my first tea ball the other day b/c i was running out of Finum tea bags. I decided to go with this tea for today since i wanted something different, the aroma was lovely with a hit of roses as the main note with slight a chamomile note. As for the taste I had a little bit of difficulty when measuring due to the large rose buds I went with 1 table spoon & added it to my tea ball. The first steep was for 1 minute and produced a clear tea with light flavor w/ the same great aroma. As for the tea ball only a few tea particles escaped! The second steep was also great no bitterness very smooth. I found the last steep to have less flavor then the first two but overall this tea is great & works wonderfully when using a tea ball.

This is one of those teas that I have sitting around that I know I need to try and write a review for but I kept putting it off. I’m not a big fan of Chamomile and rose is so intense (good ) that you really need to be in the right mind set for it. Actually, both of those flavors blend very well in this tea. Though rose is still the dominating flavor the chamomile leaves a gentle cooling after taste. Not something I would drink everyday but better then I expected. That being said I don’t taste much white tea. It’s there a little bit but not enough.

From the Cooking TTB.

This is very pretty. Silver needle leaves with whole rose buds and chamomile flowers. The fragrance of rose and chamomile are dominant in the dry leaf and once steeped. This carries through to the flavour – the rose and chamomile are very well balanced, but quite overpower the white tea, which I only get the faintest hint of on the finish.

This is a very nice chamomile – light and floral and inoffensive (I generally like chamomile, but I think the last tea I had with chamomile in it had a note of cat pee which was unpleasant.)

By the third steep, the white tea is starting to show a little more. We got four good steeps out of this and could probably keep going.

This is a very nice rose and chamomile tea, and if you like these flavours a lot then you should try this. I’m enjoying it, but I don’t think I’d ever crave this combination enough to need more than a small sample. But I’m glad I had a chance to try it.

60s, 75s, 90s, 105s.

Thank you Angel for this sample.

The blend smells extremely sweet and thickly floral. The sheer fullness of it makes a herbal scent, so sweet that it becomes rather sickly.

Flavour matches the scent rather well, it’s sweet and herbal with thick general floral after taste. It lingers in the mouth and perfumes it sweetly. It is natural tasting but the sweetness and thickness reminds me of straw/hay with manure.

Further steeps bring out a crisp fruitness like sour apple. Considering it’s herbal it doesn’t leave any dryness in the mouth.

Honestly this blend is too sweet for me, I adore rose, don’t mind chamomile nor silver needle but together it’s just too much. I can’t enjoy it as much as I hoped I would. Not one on my order list.