Tea Tasting Saturday #1 - Yin Zhen / Silver Needles

So my year-long adventure in tea exploration begins, inspired by The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea by Michael Harney. In this book, one of America's foremost tea experts shares 56 teas he says every tea lover should know, and it's my goal to try as many of them as possible over the coming year. If you want to play (or sip) along, I am aiming to try the teas in the order they are listed in the book, beginning with this Yin Zhen (Silver Needles). I'll post on Saturdays, although I'll probably actually do my tea tasting earlier in the week. And I would LOVE to have others who have tried this tea (yours doesn't have to be from Harney) chime in!

I should probably point out that I'm doing things differently than what Mike suggests in the book. First, I had already ordered my first few samples when I read his suggestion of trying all the teas in a category at one time, or at least two at a time (i.e. all the whites, all the Chinese greens, etc.). Well, I won't be doing it that way! Also, he says it's important to use a white-lined ceramic cup in order to properly judge the color of the tea. I'm still partial to my new glass gaiwan, but I *am* placing the steeped glass of tea against a piece of white paper as I judge the color of the tea, so that is my concession to that.

This first tasting was, I must say, more fun than I expected. I usually don't make such an "occasion" of preparing my tea, but I enjoyed pulling out the tea thermometer (which I haven't used in ages) and getting the temperature just right. And though I don't usually bother to filter water for my tea, I did this time, because Mike said to. I've already rebelled against some of his early suggestions, so the least I can do for the man is fall in line on the water.

Earlier in the week I created a sheet of Tea Tasting Notes on my computer, notes I will be saving in a notebook. I'd show it to you but it's not "pretty" at the moment, and I'm hopeful my friend Deberah will favor me by working her design magic on it when we get back to work next week. But I *can* tell you what the notes say:

Name of tea: Yin Zhen / Silver Needles

Category: White tea

Purveyor: Harney & Sons

Dry leaf appearance: Fluffy gray-green leaves, like miniature lamb's ears (the plant, not the animal)

Steeping temperature and time: 3 minutes at 175 degrees for first steeping; longer times for the next three steepings (yes, I got four steepings!)

Wet leaf appearance: Olive green color with a few bright green bits

Scent: Grass clipping-ish, garden-y

Color: Pale yellow

Flavor: A surprising bit of tartness at the very first sip, which quickly mellowed the more I sipped. A very pleasant and light flavored tea.

Additional notes: Tea had much more character (body? is that the word?) than the Silver Needle tea I tried last year.

Oh, and I didn't write this in my notes, but you might like to know that although I wrote about the appearance of this tea's "leaves," I learned from the Harney book that these aren't leaves at all but simply dried buds. Although I want to learn from Mike, I don't want to be influenced by his opinions while I'm tasting, so I am not reading his comments on each tea until after I've tasted it for myself.

(Future Saturday posts will be much shorter than this one, but I thought I'd better give you a little "set-up" of how and what I'm doing!)