HOT ! Old-Growth-Wild White Teas - silver Needle (2024)

Silver Needle (Bai Hao Yin Zhen) – The first harvested tea in the spring on 22 March 2024

Silver Needle is the highest grade among all white tea from Fujian province. The fresh young buds were plucked on 25 March 2024, only the fat, silver and downy buds are selected and processed. If you are familiar with our usual Silver Needle tea, you will notice that these buds are much longer and fatter due to the wild-slow-grown bushes. Dry buds have strong dry hay or dry earthy aroma as if you are walking through the dry grass land in the end of the summer. The tea has the most delicate flavour with notes of dry hay, melon, vanilla and floral.  The texture is light and juicy with intensely sweet and smooth mouth feel.  After few sipping, the tea gives you nice warm body feeling and extremely relaxing and energetic.

Like our other white teas, this Silver Needle White Teas is also produced by Master Ye Fang Yang, one of China’s foremost experts in white tea production. Master Ye has always believed in organic farming method, and he believes that white tea should reflect the local terroir and ecosystem on which it is grown but also the purities of tea. Apart from managing his existing organic tea gardens, in the past decade, Master Ye has also been interested in searching deserted tea gardens and wild tea trees in the local mountain regions. The mountain of Bai Ma Gang was his latest finding in 2014, a large, deserted tea garden with many wild-grown tea bushes located in the centre of the Bai Ma Gang area.  Since then, Master Ye has been taken over of the area and cleared out the weeds and bushes, but without interfering the wild tea bushes. 

When Juyan was first introduced the teas from this tea garden, she loved each grade. They are all phenomenally delicious with various notes of hay, stone fruit, forest characters and wild roots. Instead of only choosing one tea, Juyan bought the top three grades to show how a white tea could develop such individual character with the different harvesting time - check out the Old-Growth-Wild White Peony King and Old-Growth-Wild Shou Mei. They are wonderful teas for brewing in a big cup or gong fu brewing and enjoy them anytime in the day.

ORIGIN

Bai Ma Gang, Fuding County, Fujian Province, China.

COMMON BREWING METHOD

Water temperate: 85°C for Silver Needle Leaf to water ratio: 1g per 100ml.Brewing time: About 3 minutes.Tips: Adjust the leaf to water ratio if you prefer to shorten the infusion time or for lighter and stronger taste.Recommended Water: Try to use natural mineral water.

GONG FU BREWING METHOD

Water Temperate: 90°C for Silver Needle with lid open during brewing Leaf to water ratio: 5g per 100mlBrewing time: About 15 seconds for the 1st and 10 seconds for 2nd & 3rd infusion. Increase the infusion time for each subsequent brew.  Tips: For Gong Fu Brewing use a Gaiwan to brew and keep the lid open while the tea is brewing. Recommended Water: Try to use natural mineral water.