China - Silver Needle from High Teas

First off, I have to apologise for being a little behind it publishing my reviews – life has been catching up with me a little. I still hope to post around one review a week but I guess it was a little ambitious of me to think that I wouldn’t run into obstacles. This time I shall unashamedly blame my netbook and the hassle of cloning and installing a new solid state drive. It took a while but it is now zipping along nicely enough for me to be writing these reviews at work (outside of working hours), as I drink the tea, which should streamline my work-flow considerably.

So, without further ado...

There are two broad varieties of white tea: White Peony and this, my favourite of the two, Silver Needle. Naturally, preference is personal and a lot of folk prefer Peony for its fuller flavour but I have other teas to meet that need.

This example comes from High Teas, one of my favourite web based stores that keeps a good range at competitive prices. At £15.95, this is above my £10 per 100g price point for quality, so by my rules it has to earn that extra cost – I needn’t keep you in suspense about that though, I’ve purchased this many times before and can happily report that I’ll purchase many times in the future for a lot more if need be. This is tasty tea!

Aptly named, when you open the bag you find a downy pillow of long, silvery, feathery needle leaves that have a sweet and melon like aroma that is reflected in the flavour. There is a certain pleasure in pulling a small bundle of leaves away, and this is from the start, a very pretty leaf. For the aesthetes among you, making this tea is all pleasure.

As always, I do a quick wash and let the leaf ‘wake up’ as folk like to say these days, and then I brew this one rather lightly – as with so many teas, how long you brew it depends upon your own preference, so the watchword is always experiment. Brewed lightly though, it has a pale gold colour and a very delicate flavour, faintly sweet with, as mentioned, an almost melon like note to it. It is beautiful but also refreshing, lending itself to be either a keep-you-going through the day as you work tea, or a special relax and unwind at the end of the day tea.

If you are new to Chinese teas, like the idea of green tea but find it a little bitter or as one friend put it, too grassy perhaps, then a white tea like this is a good option for you to try. I cannot recommend this tea enough and High Teas have come through with a good quality example at a price that I’m happy to pay.

You can find it here.