Jasmine Silver Needle

Description

Origin: Simao, Yunnan
Varietal: Yun Kang #10
Altitude: 1300m
Picking: Tippy pluck and jasmine flowers

Know your tea: White tea is unwithered and minimally oxidized, thus possessing high levels of antioxidants and polyphenols. Bai Hao or Silver Needle is the most prized of all white teas and comprises only of the top bud, covered in delicate, downy white fuzz, giving it a velvety appearance. This particular Bai Hao is for jasmine lovers, as it is mixed with jasmine flowers from Yunnan and is, therefore, more jasmine forward than plain Bai Hao. 

Ingredients: Tippy Silver Needle and jasmine flowers.

Tasting Notes: Sweet rice pudding, jasmine, peaches.

Liqueur Body: Champagne-colored, with speckles of white fuzz. This tea is a forgiving one and handles over steeping well, becoming more buttery than bitter.

Preparation

We encourage you to experiment with the amount of leaves, amount and temperature of water, and infusion times to reach your preferred strength of tea,  but here's a suggestion for this particular tea: 

Pro Tip: Rinse your tea before the first infusion, to 'awaken' the leaves. You can do this by just submerging the leaves in warm water at the prescribed temperature for each particular tea, and then discarding that water. This will also preheat the vessel and prevent the water temperature from drastically falling during the infusion. 

Most reinfusions require the same or higher temperatures than the first infusion because the leaves will already be moist, but the time for each reinfusion will first reduce till a certain number of reinfusions, and then it will need to be increased till you've maxed out the potential of the leaves. 

Pro Tip 2: The first infusion will yield more fragrance and the subsequent ones will yield more flavor.