Fuding Silver Needle

I am the first to review this! The dry leaves are fuzzy, long, and beautiful.

This is a very light tasting tea. I am getting mostly hay and honey notes with some slight nutty notes. The mouthfeel is smooth, and almost seems silkier in the resteep. This is a nice white tea, it would be good for those days that I want something light and unflavoured. It seems that I am craving straight teas more and more as I taste higher quailty teas.

Resteeped for 4.5 minutes

Thanks for the sample with my order, Stacy!

The long, fuzzy needles are so cool looking. I agree with tigress_al that this is a very light tasting tea. On the first steep, I picked up floral and green bean notes. It doesn’t taste weak per se, but it’s too light for my taste. The second steep is better for me – thicker mouthfeel, stronger green bean note that I’m strangely enjoying. I think I might just prefer more robust flavor in my straight teas – perhaps a longer initial steep would have been good.

500th tasting note!

This is also my last Butiki sample, although I’ve no shortage of Butiki teas to be trying so it’s not too sad. This is probably one of the most distinctive white teas I’ve tried. I definitely get green bean in the initial sip, and then quite a heavy floral. There’s something slightly nutty in the aftertaste, too. It’s very smooth, for all that, and has a very light liquor colour, but the tea itself tastes weighty and substantial. That’s not something I’m really used to encountering in a white tea.

I’m not sure that this is one I’d want to keep around all the time — the combination of flavours is just a little too odd for that. It has shown me how unique and varied white teas can be, though. I’m really looking forward to trying some of the others in my cupboard, now!

This little tea sample came from CrowKettle. It was a cute little package. :) Anyway, I opted to have this one last night, and I opted to have it without sugar. I’ve been working on some of the lighter straight teas without additives. So with this one, I did pick up more on the hay notes, but less of the honey that I read about. I did get a thick mouthfeel though. This was not my favorite white tea to drink, but that may have changed if I had added just a bit of sweetness from organic raw cane sugar.

Overall, this was a nice white tea, but not a fave. I’d still recommend to others though, even it if was not right for me.

I was reading on the internets and saw that one company recommended that white teas be steeped at 160F for 15 minutes. I’ve had one of their white teas, and I’ve smelled others… and I wasn’t terribly impressed. Now, that’s not the steeping recommendation that came with the tea, so that might have something to do with it.

Since I’m out of that tea, I thought I’d try some other Silver Needles I have in my cupboard. Sorry, Stacy. This review might not be so great because I’m experimenting… :)

Dry, it smells (to me) pretty typically like a white silver needle. I pre-heated my mug, and steeped for what felt like AGES. Pulling the leaves out, they smell… green, actually. Green and hay and astringent. The tea doesn’t taste of much, but I bring it over to my desk to sit and really focus on.

It smells delicately floral. The taste is somewhat syrupy and floral. There is some bitterness (Ugh, it’s on the back of the tongue, not drying on the teeth. So that’s correct, right?) at the end of the sip. Sweet honey and a touch of hay. It feels green in my mouth.

This is a really interesting way to steep a white tea. I’ll have to try it with others! Maybe Watermelon Xylophone? Or I have DavidsTea’s silver needle as well…

And now for this tea. I’m not sure I love the combination of flavours and textures, but that might be due to the steeping method I’ve chosen. It’s interesting, yes. And I’ll drink the other serving I have left, for sure (I won’t finish this cup because it’s late and caffeine is a bad idea.). But would I buy more? Probably not.