Silver Needle Premium

Courtesy of the TTB 1.2

I’m going to be honest, I didn’t think I would like this tea but since I was using the TTB as an opportunity to try teas that I normally wouldn’t purchase, I grabbed a bit. The leaves are absolutely adorable – long, slender, green, and super fuzzy. After looking at several reviews to help me determine how to prep this tea, I pinched out around 2 TB of leaves and added water that was just under boiling.

The resulted liquid is pale gold, but lacking the notorious shiny hairs due to my superfine Chatsford infuser (I will be brewing these free next time…I want hairs in my mug too!) The scent is very light, slightly sweet and reminds me of hay with a hint of warm, dew-covered grass. The tea tastes pretty sweet and like warm hay, but it works for this tea. This is way better than I thought it would be as it is very flavorful and smooth with no bitterness or astringency. I’m not sure I would seek out Silver Needles in the future, but I would be open to it.

This is one absolutely delicious white tea.

I bought a tin of this at the Coffee and Tea Festival after having a sample cup of this that was absolutely delicious. The lovely ladies at the Rishi booth suggested steeping this 5 degrees lower than what it says on the tin.

I just got back from a weekend of skiing with friends, and I wanted something warm and nice to soothe the aching muscles and to comfort me. I decided to pop this open and give it a try for some lovely home steeping. One tablespoon of these adorable leaves… So fuzzy and silver with green undertone! I let the leaves steep for a while, watching as they turned light green, and the infusion color barely changed. On the pour, this one is extremely light. Nearly colorness. Pale with a tinge of cream-yellow that is so white tea.

While the smell of the dry leaves was like sweet hay, the infusion smells distinctly buttery and sort of smooth veggie-like, mixed with that hay smell. HAY HAY HAY. Like a white tea usually smells, I guess? It’s all pretty unremarkable, even though it smells very nice…

The taste, though, is pretty rocking. This is the best silver needle I’ve had. By far, so far. It tastes just as good as it did at the Coffee and Tea Festival, except now I’m getting more nuances. It’s very smooth and ridiculously light, with a distinctly floral note. More towards jasmine than rose, but neither. There’s an almost fresh-bread taste as well. Kind of yeasty and full. There’s a slight, sort of sweet steamed edamame flavor. Not like edamame water, but just the type of sweetness that comes from those amazing beans. I’m thinking this is somewhat of a savory component? It’s really good, otherwise. The lingering sweet notes in the aftertaste are akin to a juicy peach, but without any of the flavor of a peach. I don’t even know if that makes any sense, but… you get the point.

It’s incredibly smooth and lacks astringency, which is always welcome.

Loving this little cup of wonderful! Rishi’s on the fast track to becoming one of my favorite tea companies. They’re in line with Samovar and Golden Moon right now. I can see SerendipiTea joining that family once I’ve had more of their stuff. What else is on the to-try list? American Tea Room and The Simple Leaf are the standouts.

Look around.

Now back at me, because this cup of tea is amazing.

Today we had some of this at the office. Jason’s reaction, “Hmmm, this tastes dirty.”

Brewed in Huge Glass Teapot

Definitely needed a light tea like this on such a hot day. It’s sweet and refreshing but not overwhelming. I always keep a tin of this on the tea shelf.

I love love love Adagio’s Silver Needle, so I was excited to try this. Turns out, I like Adagio’s better. This has the same very silky mouthfeel, but it’s a lot lighter, crisper, and less sweet. Most importantly, it really lacks the buttery flavor of Adagio’s, which is my favorite part about it. It’s good of its own accord, but in Battle Silver Needle, Adagio’s wins for me.

I brewed and drank this tea out of my large gaiwan Chinese “glass brewing style”. Overall a fairly typical silver needle white tea with a very light and sweet flavor that to some can be summed up as being “sweet water”. Rishi Silver Needle Premium stands out with a slightly fruity taste to the sweet water which is likely from it being a blend of silver needle from different parts of China.

Nice fuzzy crisp needles opened up with a tropical rainforest, dewy, wet, and damp. Honestly, the wet leaves in the cup after the first steep smell as how I imagine dark subtropical forests to smell. Rich, earthy, and floral. The flavors expound on the aroma, with intense juiciness (a la stone-fruit), straw, and detectable fresh and raw zucchini flesh, very clean. Later steeps elicit a more restrained arboreal character, bringing back memories of humid, indoor botanical gardens, a collection of plant pheromones.

Finally, as the leaves begin to breathe out their last bit of energy, the soup fills with pea tendrils and pumpkin seed. Ah, delightfully enjoyable tea once again fills me with a bright new-day spirit. No wonder this tea has won multiple awards.

Full Blog Post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=143

Being fairly new to the world of loose teas, there have been a lot of firsts for me lately. This marks my first white tea, and it seems like it was a great place to start. There’s something about the little down-covered buds that I find beautiful, and I loved the sweet hay smell coming from the dry leaves. But once the leaves were actually steeped, the aroma was AMAZING. Fantastically fruity and sweet, and slightly floral. It smelled very promising. I wasn’t let down. Subtle straw-like and sweet fruity flavors greeted me, and were very soothing. I drank this when I was sick, and it made me feel a whole lot better. Very relaxing and enjoyable. This isn’t something I would regularly buy, it’s a bit too indulgent and it’s only something I’m in the mood for every so often. But when I am in the mood for it, it really hits the spot. Good stuff.

White teas perplex me for two reasons; one mental and one practical.

First, I always think that white teas will be either boring or overflavored. I don’t know where I picked up this notion because I usually really like white teas. This one is no exception. Rishi’s silver needle is really delicate. It has a bit of a sweet aroma. The taste is a bit more on the vegetal side, but really nice. I’d describe it as a mild green tea with any bitterness absent.

The second reason white tea perplexes me is steep times. More than any other tea, white teas have an enormous range of steep times. I’ve seen recommendations ranging from 30 secs to 8 mins. I think 30 secs-2 mins yields a pretty watery cup. It seems like 5 mins is a pretty popular time to use for this tea. Personally, I went with a longer steep time (7 mins) on this tea and have not tasted any of the bitterness I associate with oversteeping.

In any case, this tea is a solid white tea.

Best silver needle I have ever had! I could steep it overnight and there would be not 1 hint of bitterness whatsoever!!