Jing Gu Sun-Dried Silver Needles White Pu-erh Tea Cake * Spring 2017

This is a tea I kind of forgot I have, which is surprising because my collection is not that big. I just don’t drink a lot of white tea. I bought it either year of or year after and it’s picked up some odor from my tea drawer. Zip-locks permeate odors, folks. The first couple steeps where storage flavor is present aren’t that interesting otherwise, anyway, mostly just sweet.

As I said, I don’t drink much white tea so I don’t have many reference points to draw on. Reminded me a lot of the Taiwanese mountain oolongs I used to drink. Notes of pine, slight citrus zest, general floral notes (maybe orchid, gardenia, jasmine, maybe violet) and nice sweetness. In the later steeps it’s stronger on the tree-vegetal/pine notes. Pleasantly dry, with a mouthfeel that moves from round to softly dry. I was able to push the temp on this pretty hard in the later steeps, going from 185-205’F which brought out more pine and green wood notes.

I remember this tea being more astringent and vegetal, and less sweet when I first tried it, so I think aging has helped it a bit.

Even 4 years old, this tea still has a little bit of a youthful character to it. Nevertheless, the astringency seems to now appear only towards the end of the session and a lot of the floral notes are receding.

The dry leaf aroma is sweet with notes vanilla, cognac, definitely quite distinct from a fresh silver needle. After the rinse, it smells somewhat metallic. There are notes of thistles, dry earth, pumpkin and cape gooseberry.

The last one is prominent in the taste as well, especially in early steeps. One can still clearly detect basic hay and dry grass notes. However, there is also more fruitiness in the mostly sweet and sour flavour profile. Beyond that I get a light woody and spice (black pepper) flavours, as well as some hint of funky acidity. The aftertaste is a little bitter and carries a strong cooling sensation.