True Love Silver Needle Flower Tea

This tea is perfection! I ordered this as my free sample, and I am addicted. It’s so lush. It’s like a well balanced white wine with it’s level of flavors. Peachy, buttery, and like the other two reviewers said, oats and hay are lightly present. Just a lovely cuppa tea! I want more….right meow!

I drank this hot, but after I have rebrewed it (which was just as tasty), I am thinking a cold brew (third brew) will be swell. I am wondering if there’s a tea like this out there with this same flavor. Just don’t want to have this be a special occasion tea! Teavivre, you did well with this one!

I finally got a flowering teapot to enjoy these! This brew is astonishingly beautiful. The sweet smelling bulb took about six minutes to fully open. The pale topaz liquor had a deep floral and nectar tone as the tea bloomed. The bloom was of long shining spikes at the base with a brilliant golden sheet covering the needles. Two delicate silken white strands ascended from this flower and each were peaked with a beautiful pink flower. The flavor of this brew was so creamy and sweet. I left this in the pot for over eight minutes and there wasn’t a hint of bitterness. The initial sip was sweet, floral, and slightly herbaceous. The brew has a nectar encompassing mouthfeel. I do recommend only brewing this once though. The second steeping is slightly bitter and astringent. This was still incredibly enjoyable, and I can’t wait to show these off.

https://instagram.com/p/3jIEwEzGV8/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

TeaVivre offered the variety pack of these silver needle flowering teas for the price of shipping as part of their Black Friday sales. Basically it was 6 different flowering teas for less than $4 so I figured why not? I really enjoy silver needle in general so it seemed like something I would enjoy. Just getting around to trying them out now! From the outside, the unsteeped tea just looks like a ball of silver needle with a round side and a flatter side that I assume is the bottom. Dry scent is fragrant hay and oats.

Even though the directions call for boiling water, I used my usual temperature for white tea as I didn’t want to risk it going bitter. Because of that, my bulb took quite a while to fully unfurl in the cup, probably 10 minutes or so. Even with the long steep, the tea isn’t bitter at all! It has a nice smooth hay flavor with a touch of raw oats and a little bit of floral presence from the amaranth, jasmine, and marigold flowers included. My cup came out pretty strong because of the long steep, but I’m enjoying it. There’s also a little bit of stonefruit and cucumber flavor from the white tea. Once fully unfurled, it reminds me of some kind of little sea creature with two antennas! Cute.

http://instagram.com/p/xXwyKDmgMD/