Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Rishi Tea
Tea Description:
Reserve White Tea with a sublime, sweet flavor and a rich, savory finish.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I did not find this particular Silver Needle on the Rishi website, I hope that it will be back in stock soon, because it is fabulous!
I chose to brew this cup in my gaiwan. The leaves were so fluffy and soft, I just couldn’t bear to put them in anything other than my gaiwan, I wanted to enjoy these properly!
The aroma of the brewed cup is sweet, reminiscent of the fragrance of fresh hay in the clean, country air. (Yes, I’ve smelled this. I may live in a city now, but for most of my adolescence I lived in a small farming community town on a ranch, and I have a lot of experience with hay!) It smells so clean and crisp and beautifully sweet.
And that’s very much what I taste, too: a clean, crisp kind of flavor, fresh and slightly vegetal, with a hint of spice that arrives toward the finish to give it a savory kind of quality. It is remarkably sweet and full of flavor, which is a little surprising as Silver Needle teas can sometimes be on the delicate side. I do not find this tea to be delicate … at least, not in the sense of being softly flavored. It has a delicate complexity though, with hints of flavors that seem to quickly present themselves to the palate and disappear almost as rapidly, causing the taste buds to perk up and say: “what was that?”
I like that about Silver Needle tea, the overall cup may not always be delicate, but the nuances are often delicate in the way they present themselves.
I also like that this is an organic tea – as are all of Rishi’s teas! I appreciate that they’ve set that kind of standard for themselves, so I know that when I’m tasting a Rishi Tea, I know that I’m getting a high quality, organic product.
And … if you haven’t done so yet, I highly recommend checking out their teaware … they are almost as drool worthy as the pages of tea that Rishi has available!
