Kenya Silver Needle White Tea

Happy National Apricot Day! For those participating in the Sipdown Challenge on the forums, today is the day to drink an apricot tea or a tea with apricot flavor notes! This is mine for the day!

One of my sipdown goals was to try to fit in more gong fu sessions this year. I pretty much only have the time for them on weekends/days off (they simply do not fit into my working schedule in the slightest) so this Saturday morning I decided to have a session with this sample of the September 2017 harvest I received from Derk, many a moon ago. Thanks Derk!

120ml mini pot | 4.45g | 185F | 20s/30s/40s/50s/60s

Dry leaf smells of hay and wildflowers. Once wet, the leaf aroma turns to wet hay, dandelions, and bitter melon. The aroma from the cup smells like hay, honeysuckle, apricots, and sour plum. The flavor is lovely even on the first steep; a fresh and crisp vegetal hay note, soft and sweet wildflowers (particularly honeysuckle and dandelion), pollen, a soft, sweet stonefruit note (it keeps shifting between apricot, nectarine, and plum on each sip), and a very subtle citrus note toward the end of the sip. A melon flavor appears on my tongue in the aftertaste. The second infusion boasted a little more tang, with the stonefruit/citrus notes popping a bit more at the front of the sip, and the hay/florality settling on my tongue toward the end. The melon note had turn a bit sharper/more of a bitter melon, as well. As the tea cooled, I got a strong impression of honeyed apricots and pollen. The citrus note became very strong and lemony on the third steep. Hay, dandelion/pollen, citrus, and melon were the main notes for the remainder of the session.

I’m really enjoying white teas, and I like that they hold up to my unintentional aging well. Thanks, Derk!

A sample from derk and gone! (Sipdown)
5 grams, 85 ml gaiwan, preheated, 78°C water in litre thermos. Combined with chocolate dipped orange as well from derk.

This is floral. Good for hot days. As today it is. Again temperatures attacking 30 °C in shadow. God bless that we bought awning last year.

1st steep
Aroma of wet leaf is full of fruit tree flowers! In taste it is very floral, bit of hay; white grapes skins, fruit notes (could not pick any though). NICE

Ate candied orange, I expected it sweeter than it actaully was. I enjoyed it. Good dark chocolate used too.

2nd steep
Fruity, sweet. Velvety smooth in palate.

3rd
I like those short steeps. Now it is peachy. Fuzzy in taste as well.

4th
Mellow, refreshing.

I lose my desriptors. It is just great you know.

5th
Fruity with floral notes. Fruit tree flowers.

6th
Good, good…
have I said it’s great?

I do not know how many steeps I made. Just enjoying it!

These silver needles are just amazing and seem to be aging well too! It is now clearly more in the floral and sweet domain, but it retains its complexity. Even though the sweetness is all-encompassing, the aftertaste is still dynamic with a lot of vegetal and tart qualities. The floral side is very flowery with hints of pollen and honeysuckle among others. Some other new notes from today include orange peel, white grapes, apples, and honey.

Oy, I found my new silver needle. Don’t worry, Feng Qing, I can accommodate you, too.

I had success yesterday with brewing the Kenya Steamed Purple Green Tea in a gaiwan. I chose today to brew these silver needles with the same method.

Gone gaiwan. 3g, 60mL, 195F, no rinse, 10s/12/15/20/25/30/35/45/1m/1m15/1m30. 11 infusions. I’m impressed. September 2017 harvest.

The dry leaf smells like some kind of fruit I haven’t yet tried. I know once I taste that fruit, I will go AHA! that’s the smell of the Kenya Silver Needle White Tea. The closest I can get with my current palate is a vibrant mix of white grape, pineapple, honeydew and fresh green hay. The needles are elegant – long and skinny – and attest to the taste of the tea. Unlike the steamed purple green, this tea had a pronounced evolution. I noticed my tasting notes are very similar to eastkyteaguy’s despite me using a higher temperature. That indicates to me this tea’s versatility and production of a consistent experience when brewing gong fu.

In the first steep, I picked up sugarcane, dry hay and phyllo dough. In the following steeps, the liquor became full and smooth. There was an addition of honeydew, cucumber, butter, white sweet corn, vanilla, cream, a muted ceylon cinnamon and faint malt wIth a persistent aftertaste of butter, white peach and sugarcane. Later steeps lightened in mouthfeel and the tastes moved into sweet lemon, mineral and phyllo dough. Toward the end, butter reappeared and eucalyptus, along with a slightness of its cooling properties, made a presence which I love in this style of tea. The bottom of the cup retained a strong scent of sugarcane throughout the session. There was a slight astringency brewed at this temperature but it did not take away from the experience. Afterwards, I noticed the feeling of a light layer of wax lining my mouth. I checked the scent of the wet leaf in between steeps and was surprised that it smelled very similar to YS Feng Qing silver needles with a note of cantaloupe that I did not pick up on in taste.

This is a tea elegant and somewhat delicate in flavor. It has an appreciable complexity and longevity. I look forward to trying this tea in my thermos at a lower temperature and also western style. These silver needles will have a permanent home in my drawer.

Here is yet another review from the backlog. I finished a sample pouch of this tea back around the start of May, and at the time I started working my way through it, I had been looking forward to reviewing this tea for some time. The white teas produced by the Kangaita Tea Factory seem to enjoy a great reputation, consistently garnering high reviews on Steepster and elsewhere. After being highly impressed by Kangaita’s White Rhino back around the start of the year, I knew that I had to make time for this tea at some point. I finally managed to do that in May, and honestly, I ended up finding this tea to be better than the White Rhino. I’m just throwing this out there, but this may be the best white tea I have tried to this point in my life.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a brief rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea buds in 4 ounces of 185 F water for 10 seconds. This infusion was chased by 15 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 16 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea buds produced lovely aromas of hay, straw, eucalyptus, puff pastry, and sugarcane. After the rinse, I noted new aromas of butter, wood, and wheat toast. The first infusion did not strike me as presenting anything different on the nose. In the mouth, the tea liquor offered very mild, delicate notes of hay, straw, sugarcane, butter, wheat toast, and puff pastry chased by an unexpected note of sweet corn that popped out briefly on the finish. The subsequent infusions saw the nose turn fruitier as well as more savory and more herbal. Wood and eucalyptus emerged in the mouth while new notes of vanilla, malt, cream, minerals, cucumber, honeydew, cinnamon, tangerine zest, wintergreen, menthol, celery, and fennel also appeared. The final infusions offered mineral, cream, butter, sugarcane, celery, and fennel notes backed by fleeting hints of hay, straw, wintergreen, and eucalyptus.

A beautifully complex and satisfying tea, this is one of those teas that just has to be tried. Even if you are not the hugest fan of orthodox white teas, there is a good chance that you will find a lot to appreciate about this one. The Kangaita Tea Factory truly hit a home run with this tea. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This is an easy drinking white tea with delicious notes of sweet corn and cream. I quite enjoyed this one.

Check out the full review here: http://sororiteasisters.com/2017/11/14/kenya-silver-needle-white-tea-from-what-cha/

Ripe honeydew melon and gentle sugarcane sweetness fill the mouth, transitioning into lingering notes of anise, vanilla bean, and light licorice. Beautifully complex and silky smooth, this is a sublime Silver Needle and one that I would recommend without reservation.

First time I drank a silver needle tea, and it didn’t disappoint. Very beautiful tea leave needles, with a sweet smell. Also after steeping there is definitely some sweet corn-like flavor (exactly like the package promised!). I could detect some hay as well.

The leaf on this one is really distinctive. I know that silver needle tea is supposed to be long, thin, and needle-like, but these look like tea leaves on steroids! The buds are easily 1-1.5 inches long and covered in a fine fuzz.

Dry, they smelled like sweet hay, with notes of lychee. Wet, they smelled a bit smoky but still sweet and hay-like.

I decided to go gentle on the tea and used water heated only to 70°C. However, that wasn’t really the right choice; I got notes of hay, peaches, and maybe a little strawberry and fruit leather, but the tea was in general so mild and unassuming that I kept on going “I can’t really taste anything! I can’t really taste anything!”

The tea was pale not only in taste but also in colour. All of the steeps were generally a pale wheat/straw colour. Gentle, but not that striking.

I brewed the same variety of tea a few days later using water just off the boil, but that was pretty similar. A little hay, a little smoke. Maybe a deeper, richer scent. Oh, and the colour of the tea was a bit darker too, sort of a deeper straw shading into orange. But still, the flavour was kinda hiding around in the background rather than dancing on centre stage on my tongue.

I will need to play around with this a bit more to see how to get the best flavour out of it. More leaf? Longer steep times? Different gaiwan? So many variables.

Full review at http://booksandtea.ca/2016/03/comparing-two-types-of-silver-needle-white-tea/

Hello corn…my roomie and I had this and wished we had sipped it with dinner, it would have made a good complimenting side “dish”.