Tea Information:
Leaf Type: White
Where to Buy: Enjoying Tea
Tea Description:
This white tea with a white downy appearance comes from the province of Zhejiang. The Silver Needle, highest quality white tea, is picked during the spring before the buds open to preserve its tenderness. Exquisite and delicate, Silver Needle has a fresh, sweet fragrance and produces a pale yellow brew. Brewing with a Yixing teapot can best show the aroma of Silver Needle. This tea has high concentrations of polyphenols (antioxidants that help fight against cancer-causing radicals and heart disease)
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This is a LOVELY Silver Needle White Tea – also known as Bai Hao Yinzhen – from Enjoying Tea. It is so deliciously sweet and beautifully delicate.
The aroma is sweet and reminiscent of hay. I’ve compared the fragrance of other Silver Needle teas that I’ve tried to the scent of the air that would surround a field of hay after a cutting, and that is true of this Bai Hao Yinzhen as well. It smells fresh.
The flavor is also fresh tasting. Sweet, mellow vegetative tones. It is certainly delicate, and I have heard that some people tend to avoid white teas because of their delicate quality. I would say don’t let this detract you! It took me a while to allow my palate to adapt to the lighter characteristics of a white tea … but once my palate became accustomed to the softer flavor, it was so rewarding! I love white tea!
This Silver Needle from Enjoying Tea is an absolute delight!
Organic Dragonwell Lung Ching Green Tea from Arbor Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Arbor Teas
Tea Description:
Dragon Well (Lung Ching) is perhaps the most famous green tea from China, named after the Dragon’s Well landmark in the West Lake area of the Zhejiang, where the tea was first made. Dragon Well tea (“Lung Ching” in Chinese) is known for its unique shape and remarkable flavor. During pan firing, the leaves are folded in on themselves, forming the characteristic sword-like shape. The rose-tinted gold infusion of this organic, Fair Trade Certified tea is smooth and light bodied. The well-balanced flavor profile of the liquor suggests freshly cut grass and toasted chestnuts, with a somewhat floral fragrance.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
A delightful Dragonwell tea.
It has such a smooth character to it, smooth from beginning to finish, with very little astringency to speak of. It tastes light and crisp, like the fresh, spring air just after the lawn’s been mowed.
I like that this tea is grassy, but it isn’t a bitter or sharp grassy taste. It has a delicate taste and lighter in body than some Dragonwell teas I’ve tasted. But while it is what I’d call a light-bodied tea, it doesn’t sacrifice flavor. It is a refreshing cup.
As I continue to sip, the toasted chestnut flavor as suggested in the above description begins to emerge. It isn’t a strong flavor, but it seems to come alive just at the right time. Just as the palate seems to get used to the vegetal notes of this tea, and maybe even getting a little bored with it, the sweet, roasted nutty flavor arrives to perk things up.
This is a great tea to enjoy in the afternoon when you want a little pick-me-up, and it makes a really delicious iced tea too (try it iced with thin slices of lemon … YUM!) and, I love drinking Dragonwell tea with dinner, because it has a light, enjoyable taste that compliments whatever I might be eating.
An enjoyable Dragonwell, and I appreciate that it is a fair trade, organic tea. It is my opinion that no tea cupboard is complete without at least one Dragonwell tea because it is so refreshing and versatile. Dragonwell is a MUST HAVE tea cupboard staple!