Silver Needles

An Italian farmstead.


The BBC has a website and on that site is a list of good tea houses to visit if you are in China. Their site is www.bbc.co.uk/news/ The tea house article is at the bottom, past the fat belly.

Not only was there sun yesterday, but I got a bunch of samples from Life in Teacup, a generous gift to bloggers from Gingko Seto. I just had to try one. I am edging my way into white teas, so I am trying Silver Needle, Bai Hao Yin Zhen. And silver needles it is. The buds and leaves are about 1 - 1.5 inches long, covered with beautiful silver down. In the packet there is a faint aroma of white wine. I brewed the whole packet in my new little glass pot for 1.5 minutes and was rewarded with a delightful mild coconut taste. Really delicious. The liquor was a soft pale old gold color and smelled faintly of grass, with a hint of the coconut taste to come.

The second cup I brewed for 2 minutes and it was a tiny bit paler. By now, the leaves were fully expanded, a nice pale green. There was a clear, mild fresh springy green scent. The tea tasted of fresh green life with a hint of bubblegum or cotton candy - I couldn't make up my mind.

The third cup I brewed for 2.5 minutes and found it to be a darker gold than the others, which was a surprise. There was still a nice fresh green scent to it. It tasted of fresh baked greens, not at all a heavy taste, but very light.

By the fourth infusion, I was getting pretty full of tea. This was the darkest one yet - the color of straw. And that is what it tasted like - the very freshest of straw, clean and new. As a farm kid, I was always chewing on the end of a piece of straw or timothy, so I know whereof I speak.

All in all, this was a delightful trial and I am happy to add it to my list of three white teas I have liked. I told you I was new to this branch of tea.

Those darn deer have done it again - I put out peanuts for the squirrels, so the little buggers will leave the bird seed alone and the deer ate them - every one!





For those of you who like to play in the dirt and raise herbs for your tea the following article will give another reason for doing it. www.hortmag.com/blogs/gardening-blog/dirt-can-make-you-happy . So dig away and let your kids be dirty.