Silver Needle

I am 99.9% sure that this sample came from White Antlers but it was on the center dividing line of my loose leaf sample box, so I could be wrong.

I really wanted to have a nice gong fu session last night. To be perfectly honest, it is because I told my daughter I would watch Avatar: The Last Airbender (animated) since she loved it and when I hear the music it makes me want tea.

My husband loves white tea and says it feels more thirst quenching than water to him, so I thought he would enjoy this.

I gave a really quick rinse and then a short first steep. As I would expect, my first impression is of sun-warmed hay.

The second through fifth steeps were our favorites, even though I oversteeped one and it was actually a little brisk. Otherwise, they were fruitier than I expected with a hint of floral and some minerality.

Steep six lost the the fruity notes we loved and went back to hay and mineral, so we stopped at steep seven.

Served with cinnamon toast! A most satisfying gong fu session.

Thank you, White Antlers, if this was from you! (I am pretty sure it was!)

I had a sample of this from the last Here’s Hoping Teabox, which yes, was ages ago now (I don’t have many samples left from it though, I think I’m only left with pu-erhs/aged teas now!) Thanks to tea-sipper for organizing that box and those individuals that shared their teas in it! It’s afternoon tea time… I should really fix a spot of lunch but just don’t feel up to it, so I figured I’d just have some tea instead.

I used the smaller 450ml ceramic glazed pot I got from my mom for Christmas and brewed this… eh… quasi-gong fu? I wanted to use up all the leaf which measured out at 6.8g, so these ended up at around 200ml infusions according to the water/leaf ratio app I use, which I realize are a bit large for typical gong fu infusions. It also meant that I filled up on tea after the third infusion, needed a break, and had to come back and finish up around dinner time. Oops.

6.8g / 200ml (ceramic teapot) / 185F / 20s|30s|40s|50s|60s

The first steep was lightly yellow and had a vegetal and herbaceous aroma with notes of minerals, wet stone, dandelions, honeysuckle, and hay. The taste was grassy with a strong hay flavor with additional notes of dandelion greens, flower pollen, honey, and wet stones. The second steep brought forth a stronger floral aroma, as well as a subtle fruity note on the nose, a bit like honeyed pears. The flavor was a bit softer and sweeter, too; the strong grassy vegetal notes felt a little more subdued and a strong honey sweetness filled the mouth, tasting of floral nectar, and subtly of pear and stonefruit, with the mineral notes now gone. The minerality returned in the third infusion, with wet stone, moss, wet hay, and sweet floral notes. I took the tea through two more infusions, the fourth tending a bit stronger on the floral notes and the fifth a bit stronger on the vegetal notes. It was a pleasant and filling tea… I probably could have pushed it further, but honestly I was so tea full and had been drinking on it all day and just felt it was the right time to wrap things up.

Here’s Hoping TTB

The dry leaf of this tea is so pretty! Long, fuzzy pale green buds that give off a faint aroma of new-mown hay. The liquor steeps up to a clear light yellow-green color without much of a scent. The flavor is light and sweet and slightly fruity. This definitely seems to be a quality tea, but it’s also a reminder that white tea just isn’t my favorite. I prefer a more robust flavor.

I recently received my first ever order from Whispering Pines. Since I’m sitting here looking at the ice outside, I thought I’d go ahead and review the tea I’m enjoying at the moment: Silver Needle. I’m tasting the Spring 2016 harvest.

The leaves are thick, fuzzy buds that look like little bananas. They smell like a nice white tea, very delicate with a little sweetness.

I followed the instructions on the package for my first tasting. I thought it was a little overdone, so I reduced the temperature just a little for this tasting.

The taste that stands out for me is “smoky”. It’s not powerful, but it is present enough that it stands out among the other flavors. Definitely more complexity than other Silver Needles or Silver Tips. The aftertaste is less sweet, and lingers for a while.

Overall, a very good white tea. Perfect for a winter afternoon.

Okay, this review finally catches me up on my reviews. I will undoubtedly have more reviews to post by the middle of the week, but I can relax for now. This was the last of the Whispering Pines white teas I ordered a couple months ago. It compares favorably to the others, but unfortunately I am not a huge silver needle fan. That may be why I put this one off for awhile.

I prepared this tea using the three step Western infusion outlined on the Whispering Pines website. I steeped 1 tablespoon of this tea in 190 F water for 3 minutes. The initial 3 minute infusion was followed by two subsequent infusions at 5 and 8 minutes respectively.

First Infusion: Delicate aromas of pine, raisin, minerals, honeysuckle, cinnamon, and eucalyptus were evident. In the mouth, I detected subtle, smooth notes of pine, raisin, honeysuckle, eucalyptus, cinnamon, hay, and butter underscored by a trace of minerals.

Second Infusion: Slightly stronger aromas of raisins, dates, cinnamon, eucalyptus, and honeysuckle were evident on the nose. I also detected a scent somewhat reminiscent of powdered sugar that I did not pick up on the first infusion. In the mouth, I picked up distinct notes of butter, cream, cinnamon, powdered sugar, honeysuckle, raisin, dates, hay, pine, fresh basil, eucalyptus, and minerals.

Third Infusion: Mild aromas of minerals, fresh basil, eucalyptus, pine, and cinnamon were present on the nose. Gentle, integrated notes of cream, butter, minerals, hay, basil, honeysuckle, pine, eucalyptus, and cinnamon were detected in the mouth.

Overall, I think this is pretty good for a silver needle. In truth, I am not a huge fan of this particular type of tea as I tend to prefer more robust flavors, but this is by far the most interesting silver needle I have tried so far. I found it interesting that the scents and flavors I was picking up were rather different from those detailed by others. I was initially expecting a very sweet tea, which this one kind of is, but I also found it to be somewhat earthy and herbal. Maybe it’s just my palate or maybe it’s the most recent harvest. Who knows?

Light and airy, floral and grassy notes are balanced. Strong citrus notes up front, floral and some biscuit at the end. Not a huge fan, a little too light for my taste. I prefer more robust flavors.

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.

This is delicious. I love a good white tea. It tastes like hay smells. Good, fresh hay. Sweet, a bit like syrup/honey, and floral while also still a bit of green and fresh. Good for a few steeps, too.

This is a fairly tasty white tea with notes of honeysuckle, as well as floral notes. It is fairly sweet for a white tea. It is good a worth a try. I only bought a one ounce sample and will probably not end up buying more, not because it isn’t worth buying, but because I already have way too much tea.

I brewed this one time in an 18oz teapot with 185 degree water and 4 tsp leaf for 3 min.

This was my first loose-leaf white tea, and it won’t be the last. There is a sort of juicy almost “mouth-watering” effect that the flavor has. I have not experienced this with any other types of tea, and as this is my first white tea I am unsure if this “juicy” property is found in other white teas or if it is unique to this tea in particular.

The crisp notes of hay are definitely in the spotlight, shadowed by a quiet sweetness and a very subtle honey/melon-like tone. I usually add a bit of sugar to my teas, but this one works just fine if not better without it. This tea is everything I imagined white teas would be; delicate, crisp, and clean. I look forward to seeing how this tea will stand up to other whites as my cupboard grows!

Brewing notes:
The tea leaves are pretty long so I tend to want to weigh my leaves rather than measure them. I’m not sure if measuring these leaves is as inconsistent as I am imagining it, but I just can’t imagine the leaves are going to fall into the tablespoon the same way every time you measure. I used 4g in 8oz of 190F water for 3/5/8mins.