Phoenix Tea Sindano Fedha (Silver Needle): Kenya

"Mr. Knoerr, may I have some more?" The tallest boy in the school, good at sports, loud and energetic, wants a second tiny cup of Kenyan white tea. The room is unusually quiet today, because Caleb's friends have somehow convinced him to stay mostly silent—a feat I find astonishing and which I could repeat. He wrote his request on a piece of paper and handed it to me before accepting a refill.

Throughout my adult life, I've resigned myself to being alone in my interests, listening to 20th-century classical music, and reading books no one has read and no one has any interest in reading. So it comes as a continual surprise that my students want to share in (and demand, in fact) the most esoteric of my interests, tea.

Earlier in my blog, I wrote many times that the reason Americans don't drink tea is that they don't know what they're missing. We Americans, like everyone else on the planet, like the good stuff in life, when we know it exists and that it's worth the effort. Back in the '70s, when I was growing up, TV commercials (remember those?) sold Folgers coffee with flavor crystals, which brand my parents had in big canisters in the fridge. It was predictable, and it was better than whatever sludge came before, I guess.



But then the '90s happened, and Starbucks and microbreweries changed the way we drank. Coffee went from a cup of Joe to a double-mocha Venti Josephus; and Stroh's went by the wayside for Hop Zombie I.P.A. When we take some time and observe, we can really enjoy things once in a while.

(Here's a quick report on a Kenyan Silver Needle tea from Phoenix Tea. I had it awhile back, and I'm only now completing this write-up. Pardon, everyone who ever lived, for being so tardy!)


Steep 1
Pale, transparent gold
5 min steep, for fun
bright, sharp-edged at this extreme end of taste; light and floral with less
lactonic, milky hint under the brightness

Steep 2
Almost a chocolate first note, milky, white chocolate, a bit floral, vanilla, strong. "Yeah, it's different." "It smells like girls." High note of lilac, perhaps. Drying,

High-quality white tea, buds perfect,





Students line up for a white tea from Kenya, coming back for seconds.

Review: Grand Tea Baihao Yinzhen 2009 (White Down Silver Needle)

White Painting (Three Panels), 1951, Robert Rauschenberg, via SFMoma.org

As readers of my blog know, I am not much for white tea, because my palate is a bit too barbaric and longs for more robust, in-your-face teas. So I face the cup of Baihao Yinzhen, provided very kindly by Grand Tea, with a bit of caution. I am convinced that there's something here I am simply missing, and this is part of my ongoing quest to discover how to make a decent cup of white tea that I will actually enjoy. Wish me well.

Here is the description of the tea, found on the Grand Tea Web site:

First Harvest White Tea (白毫銀針) - Loose leaf

White Down Silver Needle (Baihao Yinzhen) is one of the finest white tea produced in the districts of Fujian province. This tea is delicate and has a subtle, fresh sweetness.

I'll direct you to the Web site, if you wish to read more about what they say of the tea's health and beauty benefits.

The Grand Tea Web site tells me to steep at around 71C or so, and for only a minute. Surprisingly short! I would have thought a longer steeping time would be more appropriate for such a low steeping temperature. Let's get into it, then.

THE LEAVES
I wonder, if tea trees were allowed to bloom, if they would take on the floral aroma of these leaves. Actually, they are really the buds of the tree: pointed needles with silver-gray hair over the olive-green flesh.

THE CUP
This tea is perfectly clear, with a liquor that is pale gold, without a cloud in the sky. I drink this from a JING Tea clear cup and saucer, which seems to highlight the clarity and shininess of the tea itself. Quite lovely. When I bring the tea to my nose, I find the aroma is quite faintly floral. The mouthfeel of the tea is pleasant enough. The tea's flavor is quite subtle: merest hints of flowers, a touch of pine, perhaps-- like a wisp of mist on a lake in the morning: faint, subtle enough to make me wonder if it's all in my imagination.

THE SECOND CUP
As is usual, while I'm drinking the first cup, the already-steeped tea in the pot continues to oxidize, with the complex chemical compounds combining and recombining, causing that second cup to be much more complex and nuanced than the first. And so it is, here. While the first cup left me grasping, the second cup's flavor came forward more directly. There's the slightest drying in the mouth and a good, throat-coating mouthfeel. The aroma is still too subtle for me to easily observe, except again for a hint of some kind of floral sweetness. People suggest it's the aroma of peony, but as I'm not too familiar with that scent, I'll pass on further description. And the flavor: mown hay, and the echo of some honeyed sweetness. Again, notably subtle. The tea's huigan, which means the sweet aftertaste, is enjoyable, because it kind of sneaks up on you and whacks you hard on the back of the head with a feather. Sweet, like a hot summertime meadow, remembered rather than being experienced directly.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
I'm sorry my wife is not here to drink this tea, because she would tell you that it is refreshing and smooth, with an enjoyable lightness that seems designed for her delicate palate. Then she'd demand my cup and finish it for me.

Review: Yin Zhen (Silver Needle), Canton Tea Company

A typical day in the 39 Steeps tea laboratory.

To my taste, the first sip of a white tea is almost not worth drinking, so insipid do I find it to be. With Canton Tea Company's Yin Zhen (Silver Needle), I find that to be almost, but not quite, true. That was a compliment, by the way, in case you're keeping score.

I am always fascinated by how leaf juice from this plant can be so mercurial. It will change from steeping to steeping, from setting to setting, and the variation is endless. In fact, it's almost impossible for me to get the same exact results twice (though I don't try to do so very often, because variety is the spice of life). The literal translation for gongfu is, "skillful preparation." Knowing just how long to steep a particular type of tea, and at what temperature, and in what fashion, shows how deeply your knowledge of tea goes. In my case, I coined the term, gong-faux, to signify that much of my tea drinking is a clumsy combination of research, obsessive patience, and all-too-often failed experiments as I grope toward a decent cup.

Today's example from The 39 Steeps Tea Laboratory:

Read online that this particular Yin Zhen, distributed by Canton Tea Company, is best served in perhaps three steeps in a gongfu session. Think to self, "The amount of tea they recommend seems too small for gongfu. Like I know. Anyway, double it." Steep the white tea for 2 or 3 minutes at 75C, and sip when hot (or, hottish), and get... almost nothing. Pour out into the tiny gongfu cup, and sip again. Strong! Almost bitter. Maybe too much leaf for this gongfu preparation? Stupid to go off the reservation! Perhaps a white tea prepared gongfu only requires a tablespoon, rather than two, of the tea. Perhaps I should have compensated for more leaf by steeping less time, instead of (finally) following directions? Sip again... and ready for the second steeping. Go off recipe, and this time steep only half the time. Better, but still a bit bitter. This shouldn't be bitter. Am I mad to mess this up like this? Bleh. Toss the whole thing and try again. Note to self: following only half of the directions will ensure a lousy result, as anyone reading this could easily have predicted.

Well, let's reread Canton Tea Company's Web site to see how to prepare this stuff:

Origin : Fuding County, Fujian Province
Harvest : Spring 2009
Varietal : Fuding Da Bai Hao
Certification : Organic certification in China. Direct from the farmer.

---

This rare and delicious Silver Needle white tea is entirely hand-made from Fuding Da Bai Hao tips and is simply picked at dawn and scattered in the sun to dry. It is a very high quality Yin Zhen showing a dense covering of the characteristic white hairs on a healthy, plump, pale green leaf. The liquor is very pale and bright - the colour of champagne and it has a sweet nutty aroma. It tastes soft, creamy and mellow with a long and pleasant aftertaste.

---

Brewing tips: Silver needle should be brewed quite cool, around 75c, allowed to steep for 2 to 3 minutes and infused at least 3 times

NB These fine, high grade, whole leaf teas yield different flavours with each successive infusion. The second is usually considered the best. This is why the best way to brew the tea is in a small pot and to make several quick infusions.

Buyers Notes “Try nibbling on a bud of this top Silver Needle after infusion: it will be sweet and delicious, unlike lower grades which can be bitter and woody. This tea comes from Fuding, Fujian province. The farmer won the gold medal for Yin Zhen at this year’s international tea competition in Las Vegas.”

Nibbling, check. (Tastes a bit bitter, honestly, and kind of furry.) The appearance is exactly as described: small buds, olive green with a dusting of silver hairs overall. Dusty smell to the dry leaves that tickles the nose and reminds me of a hot summer meadow. The Web site provides no notes on how much leaf to use, but I can only assume the amount I used earlier was too much, so I am going to use about a tablespoon, give or take (now there's scientific accuracy for ya). I'll go with 2:30 to get the middle setting, and use that throughout the three steepings. I am unfamiliar with treating whit tea in gongfu fashion, so we'll see what we come up with this time.

SECOND TIME AROUND
1st steeping: 2.5 minutes, 75C, 1tbsp/cup
Pretty weak, not terribly gripping, though not at all bitter. The sweetness and drying make me experience this primarily in the feeling, but not the taste, of the tea. As usual, I think my barbarian tastebuds are not sufficiently attuned to properly enjoy this white tea. Incidentally, my seven-year-old boy enjoyed using the new wenxianbei immensely, and reported the smell of the dry leaves was, "weird."

2nd steeping: (same)
The tea has the slightest of flavors-- buttery is right, per the Canton Tea Company description of the texture. The tea, to me, seems apprehended primarily in the retronasal aftertaste that rises in the throat; a bit like water chestnut or brazil nuts, or perhaps white bread very lightly toasted.

3rd steeping: (same)
There is simply not enough coming from this cup of tea for my taste. Too subtle by half.


I'm beginning to feel like Goldilocks: first time, too strong. Second time, too weak. Third time, just right?


AND THIRD TIME AROUND (good grief)

1st infusion: 2 minutes, 70C, precisely 1.4682 tablespoons per cup. Give or take.
The tea is quite strong, buttery, and a pale green-gold. Happily, I used a strainer, because there was quite a bit of broken leaf that made it past my gaiwan lid.

2nd Infusion: 2 minutes, 70C
There's a floral quality that reminds me strongly of a light jasmine tea. I'm not truly crazy about jasmine tea, as a rule, but this is interesting, not cloying.

3rd Infusion: 2 minutes, 70C
In spite of the description of the Web site, I enjoy the third steeping the most. Palest gold in color, and quite subtle in flavor.


OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
Well, for all the hullabaloo of finding the right volume of tea per cup, and settling on a good formula, I end up thinking, as usual, "This tea, though rather interesting, is not what I'm looking for." Just too subtle for me. I like my enigmas wrapped in bright, shiny wrapping paper with a bow, thank you.


Great Frankenstein's laboratory image is by artist Steven Martiniere, found via the Frankensteinia blog.

REVIEW: Earthbound Tea, White Mu Dan Peony

As I peruse my own writing on the subject, I find the oft-repeated thought that the white teas I drink typically are too light for my tastes and not complex enough to engage my interest. Well, that observation holds true yet again, this time with Earthbound Tea's White Mu Dan Peony.

For those new to the subject, a very quick overview: Bai Mu Dan is a grade of Chinese white tea. Now, every tea plant goes through the budding stage in early Spring (typically between March 15 and April 10), which makes marketing this type of tea very attractive to marketers, because white teas are experiencing something of a boom, with much interest in their health benefits. I won't examine health claims here, except to say it's probably good for you.

THE PREPARATION
I prepared the tea according to Earthbound's directions: 75C, 5 min+, using Great-Great-Grandmother's Japanese porcelain teapot. It's a bit thicker-walled than is useful for this type of tea, so I did leave the top off the pot to help it cool a touch, even though I fear that it lost a small amount of its already minimal aroma.

The Earthbound Tea Web site reads:

White Mu Dan Peony or "White Peony" is a rare tea that comes from the Fujian province in China. Only the tips and the beginning of the first two leaves are plucked. When infused, this tea has a unique nutty flavor that is mild and sweet.

THE LEAVES
Unfortunately, the leaves were rather damaged in transit, smashed into smallish pieces. I expect this would have an effect on the end product.

THE CUP
Pale, pale aroma and flavor. Yes, the characteristic peony aroma is present in my mouth, and the huigan [sweet aftertaste] is pleasant enough. But there's not enough there, there. I do wonder if the tea hadn't suffered so much in the mail service, if it would have tasted better in the cup. That being said, because I want as much depth and complexity of flavor as I can find in a cup, this is simply not enough to command my attention. However, if you value a very light, clean, lightly floral, airy cup of tea, this might just do the trick for you.

White Peony image above, by Teresa Boston.

REVIEW: You, Me & Tea, Jasmine Silver Needle

You, Me & Tea has a high-end Jasmine Silver Needle white tea, which can be found on their Web site here. Silver needle is a quality designation known as yinzhen in Chinese. It indicates the tea is made only from the tea buds, and not at all from leaves. In this case, the tea is long spears, or needles, which because of the tiny white hairs on the buds, have a silvery appearance. This is a tea that is very carefully produced. It has to be flash-steamed quickly after being plucked, so the tea has minimal oxidation. White teas are typically very delicate and light.

There are a couple ways jasmine aroma and flavor can be introduced to the tea. One is by adding jasmine essential oil to the leaves. The tea experts frown on this method, though, and instead want their teas to be infused with jasmine aroma by placing the tea in close proximity to the flowers themselves. This can be done a number of times for the same tea, to get the desired strength of the jasmine aroma in the tea.


PREPARATION
70C, 1 cup filtered water to 1 heaping tsp tea.

When I'm brewing a delicate white tea, I try to keep the temperature low and sometimes allow for a longer steeping time to make up for it. In this case, 70c and about 3-4 minutes' steeping time, with 1 heaping teaspoon of tea per cup.

THE CUP
The taste of this tea is crisp and clean, and it's pretty pleasant. That being said, the jasmine aroma and flavor were quite dominant, and I was not able to discern much of the white tea flavor. For those like my wife, Suzanne, who enjoy the jasmine aroma on its own, this would be a very good choice. But for tea drinkers like me, who really want to taste the tea in tea, this will not work so well.

REVIEW: Green Hill Tea, Silver Needle White Tea, Spring 2009

YESTERDAY, I reviewed Red Leaf Tea's 2008 Bai Mu Dan white tea, and found it to be very restrained, perhaps to a fault. As I wrote then, "Peony White is a white, unprocessed tea that is called bai mu dan in Chinese, and it is one grade lower than silver needle, bai hao yinzhen." The tea left me wondering about how drinking the 2009 would compare. because I'd be drinking it fresh.

Well, unfortunately, I don't have Red Leaf's 2009 to compare (yet), but I do have the Spring 2009 Green Hill Tea Silver Needle. This tea is very fresh, having just been plucked a couple weeks ago.

PREPARATION
The Web site suggests boiling water, 3-7 minutes steeping time. I am going to use water at a slightly lower temperature, boiled then brought down to 70C, for 7 minutes, the first time I steep this tea. I do find the lower temperatures to be helpful with white teas. However, I will also make my second pot at a higher temperature for a shorter time, to see how the tea fares.

THE TEA
Silver Needle, or Bai Hao Yin Zhen (also called white beatitude), is a Chinese white tea that is created by plucking the most tender buds at the very first plucking of spring. White tea has become quite famous for its health properties, which are the enhanced by the fact that this tea is (relatively speaking) untouched: it's not fermented, not heavily oxidized, and so on.

THE LEAVES
Beautiful olive or forest green buds with fine silver hair, gives the tea a shimmering silvery quality. Upon steeping, the leaves become a lovely spring green, with very little aroma.

THE CUP

Pot 1, 70C for 7 minutes
This tea is a transparent, pale gold with a moderately strong green flavor and a very slight, drying astringency in the mouthfeel. The aroma is very faint. The tea is very clean and smooth, with a bright tone. I notice a very faint floral note very high up, perhaps being picked up by my nose more than by my mouth. The flavor is a very singular event, without much layering or complexity, and it does not develop over time, but rather maintaining a very consistent flavor profile throughout the experience.

Pot 2, 100C for 3 minutes
Using fresh leaves, I steeped this in a different way to see what would happen. Tea is all about science!

This tea has a strong first impression as it his the palate, and then becomes progressively quieter and quieter. Slight dryness to the mouthfeel, and a touch of earthiness to the sweetness. About five seconds after each sip, there's a rather floral note that rises up and catches my attention. It's pinging a memory chord that I just cannot isolate. What is that flavor?!

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
Quite a nice cup of tea. The white teas are a bit restrained for my palate, but nevertheless very pleasant, when I'm in the mood for something clean and subtle.

(The image, by the way, is of the Green Hill from the Sonic the Hedgehog video game. What can I say? It amused me.)

REVIEW: Red Leaf Tea, Peony White, 2008

Red Leaf Tea, Peony White

It's late evening, and the family has gone to bed. Time for something to drink. I'm grateful to Red Leaf Tea for their generous gift of tea, which I'll sample tonight.


The Red Leaf Web site reads:

Description:

Hot on the heels of our hugely popular White Tea blends comes this offering that is made of an even higher grade of tea. Peony White Tea is made only from the finest tea buds and leaves plucked in early spring from Fujian province in China. These ingredients are steamed and dried soon after picking, ensuring that all of the health giving properties contained therein is intact.

Brewing Instructions For A Single Cup:

Amount Of Water 6.0 oz
Amount Of Tea 1 tsp.
Water Temperature 170°F
Steeping Time 5-7 minutes

As always, I wish that Red Leaf had published the background of the tea, including details of where and when it was produced, a bit of history about this tea itself, and so on. I have not tried any of the Red Leaf brand flavored white tea mixes, so I can't compare with their other "hugely popular" whites.

THE TEA

Peony White is a white, unprocessed tea that is called bai mu dan in Chinese, and it is one grade lower than silver needle, bai hao yinzhen. I'm initially attracted to this type of tea, because it's unflavored and simple, and should afford some nicely complex flavor and aroma to wake up my tongue and nose tonight.

High-grade white teas are to be steeped for a fairly long time, which allows the layers of flavors to develop. I'm going to steep this at 170 for the entire 7 minutes, to get the full measure that the tea will provide.

MY MEDITATION TONIGHT

While I wait for my tea, I'll meditate a bit on the nature of my changing tastes. When I first started drinking tea, about 20 years ago, I was like most Americans first encountering teas of a higher grade than teabag fannings: I enjoyed the flavored teas with lots of additives. Over time, I settled into a very happy place, drinking high-end, single-estate Darjeelings and other highgrown Himalayan teas, without any additional flavors, trying to refine my own palate. And this year, I am finally delving into the Chinese teas, as well. I'm finding that the highest-end Darjeelings and the Chinese greens tend to reach toward one another, meeting in this zone of clarity in the cup, and brilliance of flavor, and nuanced subtleness that carries me through many stages of flavor and aroma in a cup, and in a pot.

THE PREPARATION

1.5 cups boiling water, brought down to 70C, with 2 heaping teaspoons of tea, in Great-Grandma's porcelain Japanese pot. One of these days, I'll perhaps start investing in Yixing, but at the moment, this is producing a pretty nicely consistent product.

THE LEAVES

Dry, they are silvery-gray buds with a very floral aroma in the high register, without a lot of deep or darker scent.

THE CUP

This tea has a very deep, port-wine golden color to the liquor, while still retaining its transparency. The tea has a very, very light scent, which is barely noticeable, but which is definitely floral in character. This is a very subtle, very smooth tea.

I don't know why, but this tea sets my mind thinking in terms of sound: This tea, were it transliterated into music, would be Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, Op. 11., perhaps; or piano music by Ginastera. In fact, I've put this music on in the background while I drink, a Pandora Web radio station that works nicely in the U.S.: http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh30802010806901952 .

The tea, like the music, is polished and does not have sharp edges to jar me as I drink and listen. In some ways, this is a bit too subtle, a bit too restrained for my taste, yet still lovely. The bai mu dan has notes of honey, of cherry fruit, of green grass-- but one has to go looking for it, searching the subtleties out carefully to capture the quiet sensations. The tea coats the mouth with an almost buttery sensation, without any hint of dryness.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

This tea carries very lovely flavors, but in such a muted way (almost to the point of dullness) that I stretch to really discern what is going on here. I drink this in Spring 2009, and this is the Spring 2008 vintage. It is perhaps because the tea has been sitting a complete year before drinking that accounts for the overly restrained character of this cup. I'd like to try this Peony White again with a very fresh Spring plucking to see how they compare.

(Photo can be found on this lovely travel blog post, ComeFollowUs.com: Wandering Through Wuyishan)

REVIEW: Teas Etc. Bai Mu Dan Loose Leaf Organic White Tea

Whenever I try out a new tea, I want to know as much as I can find out about it-- well, as much as I can find out in the time it takes to prepare and drink it. I found something at Wikipedia (which, as everyone knows, is sure to be complete). Please notice the description of how this tea is harvested and processed-- very exacting and specific:

The processing rules require this tea only be picked between March 15 and April 10. It is not picked on days that may be raining or if the dew has not dried or if there is frost on the ground. No purple buds are allowed and the stems must not be too long or too short. Partially open leaves or leaves damaged by wind, handling, or insects are rejected and put into a lower grade. The best Bai Mu Dan is produced using the two leaves and a bud proportion and is naturally or mechanically withered to produce leaves that are not black or red but green in color. And only pink or purple fairies are allowed to pick the tea leaves, but never on moonlit nights when Oberon is causing mischief. [Okay, I may have added that last bit. --Ed.]

White teas, as many people know, are as near to an unprocessed tea as one can get. The teas are steamed very early, keeping the teas from oxidizing into its darker cousins. Bai Mu Dan is often called White Peony, or even (and more enticingly) White Hairy Monkey tea.

Bai Mu Dan is described this way on the Teas Etc. Web site:

USDA Certified Organic Bai Mu Dan is truly a treat for the palate with subtle notes of sweet cream butter and light, pleasing vegetal notes.

Grown on the misty mountains of Fujian province in China, the downy silver buds and fresh young leaves are soft and intoxicatingly fragrant. The resulting liquor is a beautiful golden yellow with a more robust texture than your average white tea. The taste is deliciously rich, sweet cream butter with light, pleasing vegetal notes. Slightly astringent, it leaves behind just enough of the smooth sweetness to make you anxious for more. Over ice, this bold white tea plays coy, leaving behind the vegetal notes for an exquisitely refreshing taste experience.

PREPARATION
The Teas Etc. Web site goes on to suggest steeping at 80C for 3-6 minutes. Okay, I'll settle on 4.5 minutes, to split the difference, and I will use Great-Grandma's Japanese porcelain pot. The leaves are pretty large, so 2 teaspoons per cup.

THE LEAVES
These leaves very in color from silvery-gray, to deep forest green, to crisp Spring green. It's mainly buds with tiny, white hairs on it, but I also see broken dark-green leaves and some stem in the leaves. They have a nice crunchy stiffness to them-- no sogginess or moisture. (What? You don't take a nibble of the raw leaves every now on then?) The uncooked leaves smell of hay and grass, with a little bit of floweriness. The spent leaves, when hot, do not have much aroma at all, except for a slightly mineral scent.

THE CUP

My wife shouted from the other room: "It's good. Light, smooth, not repulsive." (laughs) Really, I should ask her permission before putting her comments here, or risk her propensity to sarcasm when she knows I'm going to quote her.

The liquor, or soup, is a beautifully transparent cup that has a lovely amber-pink-peach color. I find the flavor to be a bit elusive for my taste. I understand that the Bai Mu Dan (or Pai Mu Tan) teas are loved by many because the taste is supposed to be more robust than some other varieties of White teas. However, for me, it's a stretch because the flavor is like a voice speaking quietly from the next room: very soft and muted, and a little hard to understand.

The cup, as my wife said, is quite smooth, with a slight dryness to the mouthfeel and a very faint burn at the back of my throat. I think it's a stretch to call this, "intoxicatingly fragrant," as it says on the Teas Etc. Web site, though it's pleasant enough.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
This is a very restrained cup of tea that must be paid close attention to for me to notice it at all. I'm not sure if it's because this is the 2008 spring tea, and it has lost its "oomph" in the entire year since it was plucked, or because it requires different methods of preparation.

I have enough leaves to try this tea a number of times, and I will experiment with longer steeping times to draw out that "more robust flavor" that is supposed to be the characteristic that defines this bai mu dan, and separates it from other classes of white teas. I shall update when I do, to see if I can draw out more from this tea, which such exacting care and attention to painstaking details were employed to produce.

Thank you, Teas Etc., for an opportunity to taste your tea.

UPDATE:
I tried the tea again tonight. Same parameters, except I steeped the tea just over 6 minutes this time. Now I begin to understand this tea. It's still smooth in the mouthfeel, which I didn't expect; but now it has a bite that catches my attention. (Ah! A smooth bite. Makes perfect sense.) The Bai Mu Dan remains delicate, but at the greater steeping length, the flavor is more defined.

REVIEW: Tea Gschwendner, South India White Oothu

Tea Gschwendner, South India White Oothu.

Exotic, intriguing, evocative, and a good bargain.

White teas are becoming so trendy that the other day I saw a white tea meat rub at my local grocery store. And when your product has become a meat rub, you know a tipping point for market penetration has been reached.

"Hey, Bernice, this pork rub has white tea in it!"
"But I don't eat pork."
"Buy it anyway! You think it's any good on bacon?"

Yep. Anyway, white tea is popular because it has all the unprocessed antioxidants and has been marketed as a health product. But I'm here to contemplate the tea experience-- flavor, aroma, and what these leaves can do.

Tea Gschwender, as we all know, has built up a lot of trust among their clients, because they deliver a very consistent product, with intelligent tasters. I love them because they have all these wonderful single-estate teas that have such individual and interesting flavor profiles. This is one of them, and its aroma and taste set my scent-memory pinging.


ABOUT THE TERROIR

The South India White Oothu is described thus on the Tea Gschwendner Web site:

Forty miles from the southern tip of the subcontinent and isolated within a pristine tropical rainforest, Oothu was the first tea garden in India to adopt Biodynamic tea cultivation. This White Tea offering is partially oxidized, showing splendid colors of green, russet and pale brown. In the cup, a delightful and pungent earthiness awaits with nutty undertones. A smooth affair, with an intensity rarely seen in a White Tea.

The Oothu organic tea estate is quite new-- only about 10 years old. It was developed in the rainforests of Kerala state, in India, by Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation on a site chosen specifically for the cultivation of pollution-free organic tea. It's out in the middle of prehistoric forests, far away from any industry or population, and isolated from the rest of the country by the Western Ghats, a mountain range that is noted for being one of the world's hottest biodiversity hotspots, with 5000 different kinds of unique plants and hundreds of species animals not seen elsewhere. The Oothu estate won't use any chemical pesticides or fertilizers, relying on vermiculture and natural fertilizing instead. Additionally, the Ghats contain an enormous watershed, which pours into the entire subcontinent. Indeed, Oothu means, "spring of water," as a testimony to the fresh water that feeds the the tea harvest. Oothu Estate is owned by the Singampatti group of estates, which specialize in organic, Fair Trade teas.


THE PREPARATION

The filtered water needs to come to a boil, then be brought way down to 70C. This cooling off does take rather a while. Once at proper temperature, I used 2 cups of water with 4 heaping teaspoons of tea, because this was not at all dense. Waiting allowed me to write a bit about the tea.


THE LEAVES

I can attest to the multichromatic tea leaves: pale, spring green leaves mix with autumn brown and olive green, and the appearance is very lovely. I did not see any whole leaves. There is quite a lot of small, broken leaf mixed with the more intact pieces. There are no buds that I can see, but some stems.

As the description states, this is a lightly oxidized tea-- which surprises me, because I had always thought that the main characteristic of a "white" tea is its lack of oxidization. If it's been oxidized, what makes it a "white" tea at all?


THE CUP

The appearance of the liquor is a rich amber, not at all green, and nicely transparent. This tea works very strongly on the part of my brain that evokes place memory. It makes me think of the scent of historic wood houses, and log cabins, and crushed leaves underfoot in Autumn.

It is very unlike other white teas I've had before. Oothu white tea seems almost like a restrained cousin to a pu-erh: dry, scented very much like cedar, and hints of the thick smell of moist, black dirt. It's slightly sweet and needs no accompaniment.

There is an aftertaste that lingers on for quite a while: with that cedar scent.


THE SECOND CUP

I have no idea what the second cup tastes like, because my wife drank it! She said, "It tastes very Asian, like nori and green tea." Well, there you have it!


AND A SECOND STEEPING

This tea very easily can provide a second steeping. I steeped again at 70C, but this time for only maybe 15-30 seconds. The flavors were very complete, and the second steeping helped me identify just what that smell was evoking in my memory: walking in Abraham Lincoln's log cabin in Springfield, Illinois. Strange, how a bunch of steeped leaves that came from the prehistoric rainforests of southern India can make me remember so many things, no?

A very nice tea. Thank you, Tea Gschwendner, for bringing it halfway across the world to us.

REVIEW: Silver Needle White Tea, Green Hill Tea

Silver Needle White Tea
Green Hill Tea

Today I review Green Hill Tea's "Silver Needle White Tea." I have not drunk much white tea. This is a taste experiment, for which I can thank George Zhang (again) of Green Hill Tea.

BACKGROUND
Because I want to learn a bit more about what I'm getting into, I quote the company's Web site:

Silver Needle Tea

White tea is made from pure spring buds and harvested only a few days of the year. Once harvested, white tea is not oxidized or rolled, but simply withered and dried by steaming. Green Hill’s silver needle has exquisitely shaped buds and covered with white down. It has a slightly roasted and sweet taste. White teas are perfect to enjoy in the evening after a light dinner. Avoid drinking them after eating spiced foods, as much of the delicacy of their taste will be lost. .

Brew hint: Place one tea spoon into a cup; add boiling water for 3-7 minute.

And here is a little bit more background, this time from Adagio Tea's Web site.

White tea from China. Silver Needle is among the most revered of Chinese teas, produced in the Fuding and Zhenhe districts of its Fujian province. Gathered only in the few days of early spring, the preparation of this tea is governed by strict requirements to ensure a premium product. This dedication to perfection is evident in the cup, which is sweet and delicate with a clean, airy fragrance.

THE LEAVES
Almost all teas are handpicked-- at least, the good-quality teas are-- and this kind of tea is quite unusual. Instead of tea made from the leaves of the tea plant, these are made from the buds only. The buds themselves (how I would love to be in a tea garden during its budding, for the fragrance must be astounding) are pale silvery-green, with a white fuzz on the outside. They are perhaps a half-inch long, and are sharp points (hence the name). The aroma is sharp, like fresh-mown hay or grass. It rather tickles my nose to take a sharp sniff! It smells a bit like the feed they give cows on the nearby farm-- rich, with this almost vitamin-like sharpness.

THE PREPARATION
3 cups water filtered through my Brita pot; 6 level teaspoons (because it's not dense at all). Bring water to boil, let cool to around 80F. Steep 3 minutes. Listening to J. S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, to get me into the proper tasting frame of mind. The music is light, effervescent, and airy, as I expect the tea to be.

THE CUP
This is a very clear cup, with a peach color, transparent to the bottom of the cup. It's very light, but it's still distinct. Very light astringency, but no bitterness at all. There is a very slight burn at the back of my throat. The flavor is reminiscent of cantaloupe, melon....

THE SECOND CUP
Ah, that all-important second up. As I always maintain, the second cup in a pot is always the best one, because the complex chemistry of the hot tea has had an opportunity to deepen the flavors, and add layers of complexity that are absent in the first cup. The color of the liquor has deepened a bit, to a richer brown-peach color, though still perfectly transparent. The flavor has become richer, with an almost pinelike overtone. Still a very restrained cup of tea.

OVERALL IMPRESSION
I don't have enough basis for comparison (against other white teas), but I would say this tea would appeal to those who want an extremely lightly flavored tea, with no hint of bitterness, but with a very slight bite. The flavors are pretty straightforward, without lots of development on the palate over time (that I can discern), but they still remind one of fruit and pine.

As always, thanks to George Zhang of Green Hill Tea for the opportunity to experience his gift of tea.

(Cross-posted at Facebook.)