Tea Sippers

I just tried, not exactly my first white tea, but the first that actually has the whole white tea leaves, which are very interesting to look at. I will need to try this again as I am not sure I got the water hot enough. Instructions were for water just short of boiling but as I live above 4000 feet, I’m never quite sure it gets hot enough.

The tea is “Silver Rain White Tea - Above the Clouds Tea” from the Republic of Tea. The can calls it the “finest quality silver needles from China’s Fujian Province”. It is a loose leaf tea. When opening the can, the smell reminds me most of fresh straw. The “needles”, which are leaf buds, are a greenish, grayish white. After the tea steeped, I pulled one needle out and was able to pick out two leaves from the rest of the bud.

The tea itself was grassy tasting. I felt like I was drinking something green picked from the pasture where livestock graze. As I said, perhaps the water was not hot enough to bring out more subtleties of the tea. It was extremely mild tasting except for the grassy taste and did not “color” the water much at all. It was mild enough to not need any sweetening. I should mention I am a sweet black iced tea drinker from way back raised in a southern raised family where sweet iced tea was served at lunch and dinner and in between. So I usually like a sweeter tea than many tea drinkers.