Looking for quality Bai Hao Yin Zhen

Well, Spring Garden, in the Vancouver area, had some great Yinzhen last summer, though they don't have a web site. (The mother of one of the owners actually *grew* the stuff.) I posted their contact details last year, so you should be able to find that info in the archives.

/Lew

Do you mean the Spr Thanks!

Beauty - just bought PQM Meng Ding Huang Ya ED Top Grade Bai Sha Lu Gan De Ti Guan Yin Fu Ding Bai Hao Yin Zhen

Cannot wait for them to get here now - that should keep me busy for a while!

Thanks Dominic.

ordered this in april and was very impressed. price is very good for white. not sure if it is the exact type you were looking for.

alanj

ordered

Not the exact type - but it was a real high quality reputable white that I was looking for - so that will do the trick - I found that particular white that I was looking for @ teaspring as well - and I am told that they have good teas too - I may purchase from there as well.

/Lew

I tried 4 yinzhen silver needles recently, two from inpursuitoftea, one from hou de, and one from jing tea shop as in the link above. The best of them was the more expensive bai hao from IPOT. It's about

I ordered eight different teas from jing tea shop recently and this yinzhen silver needles was the only disappointment - the other 7 teas are excellent, but the silver needles have a slightly sweet/sour taste and leaves aroma that I haven't noticed in other silver needles, and is generally blander than either hou de or ipot tea; but, to be fair, it's also less expensive.

On the other hand, their Pai Mutan is quite amazing, especially at the price, and in fact far better than their Yinzhen Silver Needles.

I only made a few pots so far so maybe it will grow on me, but hou de and ipot silver needles were perfect right away - I find it very hard to screw up silver needles if I don't totally overbrew it.

In fairness Jing's makes it clear that this year has been particularly bad for it and that is why they have sourced this one from elsewhere. I actually posted that link because of the explanation given as to this years crop, but I could see how it doesn't stack up especially if any of the ones you tested were from last years harvest. Thanks for the info though, I tend to just trust Jing's fairly implicitly.

- Dominic

That may be the case although Hou De's tasted really fresh. At any rate I'd highly recommend Jing's other teas to anyone, this is one rare exception. In fact it's still better and cheaper than whites you can get from places like Ten Ren or Kam Man. I just realized that smell of this Yin Zhen reminded me of whites and Long Jing at Kam Man (It's a really great store in Manhattan - just not that great for teas..)! -ak

Hou De Asian Art carries highest quality teas, including

Best Teahouse of Hongkong has a branch in Canada, you can access the info from here:

The silver needles they sell:

I have tried several silver needles in the market, the silver needles from Best Teahouse are one of the better ones I've tried. Many vendors sell Silver Needles only in name: silver needles they are in appearance, but the tea is closer to a green tea than white...

Kevo

I'd second the Spring Cottage Tea House recommendation. We buy our Silver Needles there every year, and no other source has come close to their quality. Their year's shipment came in a few weeks ago and we made a special trip to buy our pound for the year (it's $100/lb, but silver needle is so fluffy that a pound is a LOT of tea).

Best Tea House is also very good, but their Silver Needles can't quite compare and their prices are usually higher for similar quality. However I would absolutely recommend them for their vintage Pu-erh variety, and they sell an excellent English-language, full-color, 287 page, hardbound textbook/reference guide on pu-erh called "First Step To Chinese Pu-Erh Tea" by Chan Kam Pong (ISBN 978957896-2).

-Charles

When brewing tea, do you measure by weight or by volume?

I've recently read that because some teas are bulkier than others, using a scale is the best way to measure tea for brewing.

In which case, you won't get more cups from your Silver Needles than you would from Orange Pekoe.

Dave S.

Definitely a scale to get a good sense of true weight at least in the beginning until you get a good feel for it. Even then I tend to re- weigh a new vendor/years tea because it can vary by quite a lot. There is a fairly recent thread about scales and dealextreme.com which is where I buy mine from.

- Dominic

I tend to count the plump fat silver needles variety. OP is more dense than SN so more 'heavy'. Anyway my measuring stick is that looks about right in the palm of my hand which does vary from tea to tea based on experience. I think taste buds are more accurate than any scale.

Jim

Dave S wrote:

Iggy snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@j33g2000pri.googlegroups.com:

Thanks, Lewis Perin and Iggy for the Spring Cottage Tea House recommendation. I just placed an order for White Tea and Jasmine Pearls.

Spring Cottage Tea House now has an email address: ChineseTea007_at_yahoo.com.hk Replace _at_ with @