Spring Cottage Tea House

This year’s harvest is a bit different. The bud are MUCH larger, many a full two inches long, yet are still the full downy-haired leaves and not a later harvesting. The end result is that the tea is much sweeter, almost like a bai mu dan rather than the sweet hay flavor of earlier years. Although it’s still delicious, Spring Cottage Tea House obviously knows this deviates from the “ideal” silver needle and the price is therefore twenty dollars a pound less this year.

We needed a jump-start this morning so we went for the heavy hitter — the highly caffeinated silver needle white from Spring Cottage, which we’ve dubbed “Mom’s White” since the shop owner’s mother grows it on her farm. They only get a few pounds a year and we always buy a full pound (vacuum sealed into 1/8th lb bags) to last us until the following year’s harvest. For such a light tea it certainly packs a punch! Fresh leaf buds concentrate caffeine more than people realize.