Yin Zhen (Silver Needle)

This weeks Canton Tea Clubs tea is Silver Needle (Yin Zhen). It’s strange but I have been craving a lot of white tea the moment so it’s very fitting.

The leaves whilst raw smell slightly sweet and floral. They are silvery green in colour and form thin, sharp leaves that are so fresh they have a natural fuzz.

Brewed in a small teapot using 4g with three infusions starting with 1 minute and increasing each infusion by an extra minute.

Once wet the leaves smell sweet and somewhat fruity, almost like melon or sweet pea.

Infusion 1 – Very pale yellow in colour with a sweet and vegetal fragrance. The tea itself is crisp, fresh, light and floral. A wonderful example of fresh Silver Needle.

Infusion 2 – Same colour and smell. The flavour is a little stronger and crisper. The sweetness is now also more fruity but still subtle and fresh.

Infusion 3 – The same colour and smell. The flavour has weakened muchly and is now more floral than fruity but extremely subtly.

Three steeps were recommended and they turned out nicely. With the club giving me 25g this week and a teapot only uses 4g I have plenty left to enjoy :) Thank you Canton Tea Club.

Silver Needles are beginning to bore me…
It’s almost like the new Earl Grey – everyone seems to have one, ya know!?

BUT…

Canton has a LOVELY Silver Needle! Very crisp and clean and YUMMY!
Makes your mouth water and you crave more!

Delish!!!

After a long run of flavored teas, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to get back to basics a bit. Ahhh… yes, this is good. I love to poor white tea out into a little glass bowl and marvel at the whiskery leaves (hairy little bastards). I’ve been examining my tea a lot this way recently in the interest of science (or in lieu of a hobby). My new hobby could be the overuse/ misuse of brackets (hmmmm).

This Silver needle by Canton is very whiskery! The flavor is refreshing, creamy, and I can taste melon in the finish. This is a very delicate but still flavorful white tea.

Edit: The melon flavor really developes as this tea cools!

This is a fantastic silver needle. Beautiful sweetness. Very serene.

It has a sweet fruity undertone, and a lovely creaminess that becomes the highlight of the cup when I use extra leaf like I did this evening. This is one of the best silver needles out there! Very nice.

I haven’t been a fan of white teas in the past because they’re simply too delicate. From past notes, you can gather that I’m big on bold flavors.

However, this white tea had a lot going for it. First, the leaves were an incredibly uniform pale green with the typical silver needle white hairs. It was as if they had been hand picked and matched for size, shape and color. White teas don’t typically present a lot of fragrance, but this was hearty with notes of cereal, malt and alfalfa.

Once prepared, the tea was a pale gold and the rich fragrance remained. The taste is of malt and honey and there’s a very slight floral essence.

This tea kept my attention and it will stay on my shelf until gone-which won’t be long.

I don’t have much experience with white teas, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what I can learn from this one. On first look, the leaves are beautiful – furry and very soft. They smell wonderfully fresh. The liquor is touted as being champagne-colored, but I think it’s a little too dusky for that; I’d say it’s more like a very light ginger ale or cream soda: a very light yellowish tan.

The flavor is light as well, but more complex than I had anticipated. There’s grassiness, but not in the same way as a Japanese green; more like a straw-grassiness, akin to chewing on a dried piece of sweet hay. There’s some sweetness and absolutely no bitterness or astringency, though there is a high note I’m having a hard time putting my finger on. Almost like pine, in a very subtle way.

Second steep: It’s funny, I’m getting almost as much of the flavor in the aftertaste as in the sip itself. I’m not used to teas that are so quiet – it’s kind of throwing me off my tasting game! There’s enough going on that I know I’ll be able to appreciate it, it’ll just take a little reprogramming of the taste centers to get there.

Light, delicate, creamy – but not as buttery as others I’ve had. Nice silver needle, but not my favorite. However, in general, I’ve not found a Canton Tea Co tea that’s not a good tea. I’m consistently impressed with their production and quality, and this tea follows suit. I know I sound like a shill, and I don’t mean to – I’m not affiliated with them. I just like their tea!!!

Picked a random pack from my Canton sampler :)
Is a little sleepy, so my review will be short and lacking in details.

Leafs are nice, green and hairy. Erhm… and somehow they defy gravity and stays at the top of the cup. Maybe it’s because I was to lazy to preheat the cup before steeping. Or maybe it has issues. “I am too good for this cup. Now get me your finest porcelain.”-ish issues.

How to describe the aroma?
First thing that comes to mind is ASSAM, but no way in hell this is assam. I must be craving or something. Anyway… First sip screams: ASSAM, but no. It can’t be. This is a white silver needle soooo far from assam as it’s possible.

The only thing you can trust me for is that this tea really is green/white, hairy and that the liquid is very bright. Sweet tasting.

The rest – look away from it. I’ll write another tasting note for this when I have dealt with my ASSAM! craving.

Funny thing is… I really don’t like assam that much.

I drank this yesterday but am only writing it up today. It was one of the teas from my Canton Tea Club membership. I don’t seem to be keeping up with these very well at the moment and have a backlog to try. Still, that gives me plenty to look forward to.

The leaves are silvery and needley! Really? Yes! They are very whiskery and look great. The tea itself has a thick mouth feel and is quite grassy at first, but the melon flavour develops later. I found this tea really refreshing and it resteeped well too.

First of all I would like to thank Canton tea for this free sample.

I have steeped this one in my gaiwan 3mins 175F.
I have done 6 infusion atm.
The color is a pale yellow in all the infusions I have done.
The fragrance is really floral, especially in later steepings.
The taste is creamy at the beginning with notes of raw sugar and vanilla, and ends with floral essence.
The aftertaste is really persistent; but I didn’t like it very much.

I don’t think it is so light and delicate as some are saying.

In conclusion I think it is a nice tea, but there are a lot more I prefer; especially for the aftertaste.

The first time I cupped this one I stopped after one potato-ey, disappointing steep. My impatience has proven to be folly because this one gets nicer as you go along. It’s not the most delicately imperceptible Silver Needle, but nuanced enough and very durable. Pleasant florals come out with each steep (short, gongfu style) that add complexity to a grassy, relatively straightforward, though sturdy, tea.

This has been on the shelf in my white tea tin gathering fuzz. Oh wait, it already has fuzz. Yes, this is the fuzziest of Silver Needles I have yet come across. You got it, fuzz is a desired trait on Silver Needle leaves. I brewed it a little longer and a lighter temp. The result was a light, floral, nutty, and creamy cup with a melon note. Wow, just like the description of Silver Needle’s typical taster notes. A very good offering.

Full Review: http://www.teaviews.com/2010/07/25/review-canton-tea-co-fuding-bai-hao-yin-zhen-silver-needle-white-tea/

Review by Leslie: “I’m sure I’ve had a silver needle before, but I don’t have any recollection of it. I brewed it for 2 min’s at 175 degrees. After the allotted time brewing the coloring as surprisingly fair. The lightest hint of gold, it was almost barely there. Holding it up to the light, there was a warm glow, but I had to double check that I had prepared…”

Read the full review at http://www.itsallabouttheleaf.com/678/tea-review-canton-tea-silver-needle-bai-hao-yin-zhen/

Wow! This is the first time I have tried a white tea. I must say I am plesantly surprised! When I poured it out, at first I was scared I hadn’t steeped it long enough! But then I smelled it, and it smelled wonderful. The first taste is very floral and the lingering taste is very mildly green. I was disapointed in Canton’s Vietnamese Pu erh tea, but this more than makes up for it!

though unfortunate mine is not this vintage of 2009…

so a bit weaker though I must note that for a white tea this has held on much longer than I would have expected.